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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A SCRAP-BOOK OF PICTURES 
AND FANCIES 



A SCRAP-BOOK OF 

PICTURES AND 

FANCIES 



BY 

WILLIAM LEIGHTON 

Author of "The History of Oliver and Arthur," "The Sons 
OF Godwin," "At the Court of King Edwin," etc. 




CHICAGO 

R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 

1906 



r 



UBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

APR 4 1907 

Copyright Entry 

CLASS Ou XXc, No. 

COPY 3. 



Copyright, 1906 

BY 

WILLIAM LEIGHTON 



8. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 
CHICAGO 






TO 
MY WIFE, DAUGHTER AND SISTER, 

WHO HAVE MADE FOR ME THE POETRY OF MY LIFE, 

THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 



CONTENTS 





Page 


Home 


II 


Christmas 


i8 


A City Idyl 


22 


Youth and Age 


25 


Epigram 


34 


A Warden of Enchanted Land . 


35 


A Sad May-Day .... 


3^ 


Adieu to the Year 


38 


The Death of the Year 


40 


^The Poet's Month 


43 


The Tower of Sonnenberg . 


46 


The Mountain Brook . . . . 


49 


The King of the Lake . 


54 


-Masks . . 


57 


In the Bavarian Tyrol 


59 


The Enchanter .... 


62 


-Memories ..... 


. 64 


A Norse Love-Song 


65 


Daphne and Calidon 


67 


'The Fountain .... 


71 


^Unseen Attendants 


73 



Contents 


SONNETS 


A Sonnet is a Jewel , ... 77 


Alfred Tennyson 






78 


The Dead Lion ... 






79 


Hamlet ..... 






80 


Imogen 






81 


Desdemona .... 






82 


A Vision of Night 






83 


Church Bells 






84 


At the Monastery Church c 


F TH 


E 




Madonna del Sasso 






85 


The Afterglow 






86 


Flowers 






87 


Faithful Friends . 






88 


De Luxe 






• 89 


The Faun 






90 


Moonshine 






91 


The Old Schloss . 






92 


Carthage 






93 


Broken Wings 






94 


My Wife's a Butterfly 






95 


Midnight 






96 


Fascination . 






97 


My Valentine 






98 


A Quiet Village . 






lOI 


Pilgrim Settlers . 






102 



Contents 


The Minute Man .... 


103 


Daniel C. French .... 


104 


Ralph Waldo Emerson 


105 


The Sage of Concord . 


106 


The Poet Philosopher . 


107 


The Thinker and the Doer . 


108 


The Wayside House 


109 


Nathaniel Hawthorne 


no 


The Old Manse .... 


III 


Henry D. Thoreau 


112 


Louisa M. Alcott .... 


113 


Sleepy Hollow .... 


114 


By the Bridge .... 


115 


Fable Land ..... 


119 


Palm Beach 


120 


Paradise . . . . 


121 


Snow on My Pines .... 


. 125 


When Winter Comes 


126 


Waiting for May .... 


127 


Suggestions of Arabian Nights . 


131 


Each Has His Story 


132 


The Mosques 


^33 


The Early Man .... 


137 


Nature's Appeal . . . . 


138 


Primal Awakenings .... 


139 


Transformation . . . . 


140 



Contents 



Beauty is Harmony 

The Song of the Universe 



141 
142 



RONDEAUX 

Whither Away, O Wind ? 

At Night 

Alone .... 

Within These Walls 

Time, Break Thy Glass 

More Light . 

Farewell 



145 
146 

147 
148 
149 

151 



TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GERMAN OF 

HANS SACHS 
Conrad Doubt and the Priest . . 155 
The Fountain of Youth . . . 162 
The Gown and the Pigskin . . . 165 
Lo, THE King Drinks! .... 168 



Amidst oppressive toils that vex and wear, 

Behold a calm and lovely angel rise, 
The angel of the Homel and weary care, 

Before her sweet and glorious presence, flies; 

The talisman in her enchanting eyes, 
A pm*e, imselfish love. Invisible 

Unto the world perchance, she brings her prize 
To crown a life it deems most miserable. 
And softens discords harsh to harmonies ineffable. 

How many hearts have felt, but never told. 
Their dearest longings! hid beneath the show 

Of false serenity and aspect cold 
The fondest wishes that the soul can know, 
The warmest impulses that ever flow 

In human breasts! And can we dare to ask. 
What thought, love, wish, or passion's burning 
glow 

Was hidden thus, a life-enduring task? 

Nay; who hath ever lived that never wore a mask? 

Then say not that they do not love who seem 
Forever passionless: the heart hath deeps 

Of which the shallow thinkers never dream — 
Deeps so profound that passion ever keeps 
Within their shadows. Think not that he sleeps 



Pictures and Fancies 



Who doth not chatter every passing thought, 

Or tell of each emotion that upleaps: 
The poorest heart is by some passion wrought; 
And lowly lives full oft with heavenly impulse 
fraught. 

Where dwelleth man mysterious charms arise 
To soothe the harshness of ungentle clime, 

Or paint with majesty tempestuous skies. 
Firing his heart with grandeur's power sublime 
To thoughts or acts that mock the grasp of time; 

EnkindUng art in rich, luxurious town 
That else had lured to indolence or crime; 

Inspiring liberty where mountains frown, 

Or meditative thought upon the breezy down. 

White as a bride's veil, over lofty heads 
Of mountain peaks, eternal snows are cast, 

While lower glimmer, in their icy beds. 
Deep, sluggish rivers, frozen but not fast, 
For when the wild winds sweep those glaciers 
vast 

Their solemn march most dismally is sung 
By howling voices of the stormy blast. 

Beneath, in vales by frowning heights o'erhung. 

The freeborn Switzers dwell the clouds and skies 
among. 

A Home of grandeur, but a Home of fear 
To all but its possessors, realm of cold. 

An ice-walled mansion, isolated, drear, 
Yet Homeland dear to simple freemen bold. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Who laugh at fear, and will not be controlled; 
In native liberty who think more blest 

Their mountains than mild climes with skies of 
gold. 
On mountain crags the eagle builds his nest: 
Bold as an eagle's heart, each mountaineer's free 
breast. 

He sleeps at night while avalanches pour 

Down vast ravines huge, toppling fields of snow; 

Earth shakes astounded at the tumult's roar 
And all the din of wild destruction's flow. 
Yet, if it spare the Switzer's cot below, 

He sleeps in trustful, peaceful slumber there, 
Nor heeds the torrent's rush and overthrow — 

He sleeps content, and dreams his Home more 
fair 

Than loveliest island fanned by zephyr's perfumed 
air. 

Above the restless ocean's heaving breast 

A rocky crag lifts up its wave-washed steep. 
On whose rough face, like sea-bird's stormy nest, 

The fisher's cottage hangs above the deep. 

Here is a Home where fond affections keep 
Their faithful troth; where joys and griefs are blent 

In eyes that sometimes laugh, and sometimes 
weep; 
And hearts are nestled in as sweet content 
As if, in richer Homes, more lavish lives were 
spent. 



Pictures and Fancies 



The hardy fisher, toiling home at night, 

Beating to windward in his laden bark. 
Sees from afar his cottage window 's light 

While all the sea and stormy sky are dark; 

Fondly his eyes that tiny beacon mark. 
That sends so lovingly its little ray 

O'er waves whose tossing often hides its spark, 
While, on his rough cheek, midst the sea's salt 

spray, 
Glistens a fresher drop he hastes to dash away. 

''That light is set to guide me Home," he cries, 
" And faithful hearts are watching there to-night" ; 

On that loved beacon strains his eager eyes 
Until their moisture dimly blinds his sight. 
And his own tears have drowned the taper's light; 

Yet still his heart its kindly shine can see, 

In which e'en angry ocean's waves grow bright. 

No dearer spot of earth can ever be 

Than where that taper burns, faint glimmering 
o'er the sea. 

Some love the ocean and its pomp of power. 

In its wide solitude delight to dwell. 
Dreaming of sea-nymph in each coral bower. 

Hearing a mermaid's voice in hollow shell 

The marvels of her Home in ocean tell; 
Of creatures quaint that, in sea-caves, abide; 

Her cadences breathed forth like ocean's swell. 
Or the sea-dreamer, leaning o'er the side. 
Fancies strange, ocean things that swim beneath 
the tide. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Amid the world's perplexities and cares 
Untoward chances vex the weary heart, 

Whose load of troubles anxiously that bears, 
And gladly finds one spot, from doubts apart, 
Where it may ease the sorrow and the smart, 

And even heaviest griefs perchance beguile. 
Dulling the point of fierce Misfortune's dart • 

By casting down its weary load awhile 

To taste the solace sweet of fond affection's smile. 

As when, of old, a pious pilgrim came 
To holy virgin niched in wayside shrine. 

And knelt in prayer, her blessed help to claim. 
So, to the household hearth, for help benign 
And the o'erwearied heart's best medicine. 

Comes the life-pilgrim, happy if he see 
Affection there, with seraph brightness, shine, 

To cheer his journey, and his light to be 

On paths he travels else in dark obscurity. 

How tenderly fond S3mipathies entwine 
The Heart and Home, defying all alarms! 

So, round an oak, the tendrils of a vine 
Hug closely its great heart with clinging arms. 
Hiding its roughness with their verdant charms 

And bloom of flowers in loving ligature. 

Home is a fortress that protects from harms, 

A citadel where sits the heart secure. 

The shrine and altar-place of all affections pure. 

How in the heart, through lapse of years, abide 
Fond memories, we secretly confess, 



IS 



Pictures and Fancies 



Home-recollections, time can never hide, 
Nor bury into dull f orgetf ulness ; 
Nor all the duties, that around us press 
In life's maturity and busiest day, 

Drive from our thoughts! They still remain to 
bless, 
With hallowed images of Home, our way 
When backward sweeps the Past with all its long 
array. 

And as the full procession passeth by 

How many dear-loved shadows do we see. 

Who once, with helpful hand and loving eye. 
Walked with us here in life's reality 1 — 
Shadows ? Nay, what more real than memory ? 

The bodily shape is but a thing of sense, 
While soul is life's supremest entity. 

For that immortal part hath competence 

Beyond the utmost reach of Death's malevolence. 

As the charmed halls of recollection give 

Us back again the shapes of that familiar train 

Which, drawing near and nearer, seems to live 
In the clear pictures of the wizard brain. 
And all the treasured Past comes back again, 

The heart, enchanted by the vision fair. 

In memory's magic world would still remain. 

Finding its Home where dearest treasures are. 

Content to dream for aye so it may linger there. 

For, o'er the boundary of this Hving day 
To that Beyond, which sometime seemed so dim. 



i6 



Pictures and Fancies 



The dearest friends have passed upon their way, 
Drawing our heart-strings toward life's outmost 

rim; 
And that far country, darksome once and grim. 

But which is peopled now by cherished dead, 
Sends Hope and Comfort smiling o'er its brim; 

Nor whispers now of sorrow or of dread. 

But messages of Home and happiness instead. 

Home is a talisman to banish Woe; 

Add brighter lustre to fair Fortune's light; 
Soften Adversity's descending blow; 

Illume Despondency's black halls of night; 

Shed on life!s way a radiance fair and bright; 
Drive from the heart Doubt's dusky troop of fears; 

Sustain the soul in honor and in right; 
Cheer all the journey through a vale of tears; 
And light the torch of Hope when Death at last 
appears. 



17 



Pictures and Fancies 



Their galleys hauled upon the shore, 
Huge Norsemen, in their chieftain's hall, 

Feasted while Yule-logs flashed and lit 
Axes and swords upon the wall; 

Half -roasted meat the tables piled 

Barbaric feast for warriors wild. 

Seen in that lurid, smoky light, 
How brutal every Northman's facel 

How vast each hero's bulky form, 
From sire to son, a giant race! 

Round each fierce face, that feasted there, 

Hung tangles wild of flaxen hair. 

They drained the mead from oaken pails; 

They shouted, sang, in savage glee; 
They drank to heroes and their gods 

In rude, tumultuous revelry: 
The timbers rough, that roofed them o'er, 
Shook with their huge throats' deafening roar. 

That feast, at Winter's solstice kept 

By heathen of an elder day. 
The Christian world has still preserved, 

Though milder honors now we pay; 
Of Yule, our Christmas takes the place — 
We, children of that northern race. 

When, nineteen hundred years ago. 
In Bethlehem a babe was bom. 



i8 



Pictures and Fancies 



The holy Mary with him lay 

In lowly stable on that mom 
When overhead shone down the star 
That led the Magi from afar; 

And Bethlehem's shepherds, tending flocks, 
Heard a sweet choir of angels sing. 

Beneath that star's benignant light. 
An anthem to their new-bom king; 

And knelt to bless mom's dawning ray 

That ushered in the Christmas day. 

A sacred message, sent to tell 

Of universal brotherhood. 
Of purer faith, of larger life. 

Of the ennobling power of Good, 
Shone, like a holy diadem. 
In the fair star of Bethlehem: 

A Savior born to bless the world; 

From fables, myths, and gods of Greece, 
To free the hearts and souls of men — 

A Savior and a God of Peace. 
Celestial light from Heaven above 
Was shining o'er the birth of Love: 

O wondrous birth so long agol 

O glory of a Christmas day! 
And if the world must still be blind, 

With nineteen centuries passed away, 
Yet ever Love, with deathless light. 
Is shining through the darkest night. 



19 



Pictures and Fancies 



Now round our fathers' hearths we meet 
When Christmas comes with waning year, 

Renewing those domestic ties. 

Though sundered oft, yet ever dear — 

Brothers and sisters, children, all, 

The grandsire old, the grandchild small: 

Around the table happy faces 

Are lighted by a sweet content; 
The hearty laughter, joyous chatting, 

Fill up the time with merriment; 
And toasts are drunk with speech and song 
While love and joy the feast prolong. 

And later, when the feast is o'er, 

The evening hours are bright and gay, 

And music lends its witching power, 
With joyous strains to crown the day, 

While dancing forms flit to and fro 

'Neath holly branch and mistletoe. 

Dear recollections of those days 

Return to us in after years 
When now, perchance, we meet no more; 

Nor Christmas brings its wonted cheers, 
As colder comes the festal day. 
Brothers and sisters far away: 

Death may have thinned the joyous band, 
The hearth now cold where once we met. 

Scattered the children of one sire. 
But those dear ties we ne'er forget: 



Pictures and Fancies 



Round Christmas cluster memories dear, 
The hallowed time of all the year: 

The Christmas days of earlier life 

Come back to memory with their throng 

Of recollections of our youth: 

Bright scenes, dear friends, to them belong- 

Those halcyon days when griefs were few, 

And life more sweet than then we knew. 

Though smaller now the number be 
Of those dear ones who greet the day, 

The closer grow the ties of love 

To those death spares to cheer our way; 

And|Hope suggests, another land 

At length will reunite our band. 



Pictures and Fancies 



A (dttg Mi^i 

In an October haze the morning sun 
Hung glimmering: his tawny rays of light 

Had swum in fog since day had first begun; 
And if he would emerge to splendor bright, 
Or, in that hazy sea, extinguished quite. 

Die ere the noon, seemed battling in the air; 
But passers in the street, in doubt's despite. 

Could not but deem that golden glimmer fair. 

And Autumn's artist hand had touched the trees: 
The stricken leaves bright tints had overcast; 

Their painted banners shook in every breeze. 
Or, stripped from branches by a ruffian blast, 
Rustled and murmured as each footstep passed; 

While, soft as softest clime, a breath of balm. 
Spirit of gentleness, o'er all things cast 

Its charm, while Nature voiced autumnal psalm. 

Along the city streets, upon this morn. 
The people passed; and though each breast had 
care. 

And labor's load was often wearily borne. 
Yet many hearts were throbbing thankful there. 
That Autumn showed so beautiful and fair. 

A young girl comes, in whose bright eyes is 
Spring; 
The waning season makes her youth more rare 

And lovely with its elder, sere, contrasting. 



Pictures and Fancies 



The Autumn's beauty clasps her round about; 
Her artist eyes grow brighter; and the sun, 

Spying her bright face, breaks an instant out, 
While tinted leaves with sudden brightness bum 
As they would win her glad eyes' admiration — 

Why doth she stay her nimble-gliding feet ? 
What shadow, on her face, tells quick emotion? 

Why looks she earnestly across the street ? 

If she be Spring, lo ! Winter's self is there. 
An aged crone, whose load escapes her hand; 

Whose shaking limbs, bleared eyes and snowy hair 
Proclaim her years have nearly touched life's strand; 
While on her face is misery's woful brand — 

Her basket falls; and, with a weary sigh 
And sob, no longer having strength to stand, 

She sits her down upon the curbing nigh. 

Across the street the maiden swiftly hies. 
Her heart, with soft compassion, running o'er; 

A world of pity in her tearful eyes; 
Kind heart and hands to help the needy poor: 
With nice-gloved fingers she picks up the store 

Of coals the poor old woman has let fall. 
Nor stops to think her gloves are soiled therefore. 

While whispering cheer, that fainting heart to 
heal. 

And when the aged woman, by the cheer 
Of alms and kindness, passes on her way. 

The maiden still assists her, with a tear 
Wet on her cheek, until, with steps more steady. 



Pictures and Fancies 



The crone goes hobbling on. Now briUiantly 
Bursts forth the sun out of his golden haze 

As he would show his joy in holiday, 

And crown the maiden with his brightest rays. 

But in the midst of brightness, in her heart 
There is a solemn thought that, though the day 

Be bright to her, and joyous, it hath smart 
Of grief to others: in its brightest ray 
Both pain and sorrow come to thousands — yea, 

In all these streets, which autumn's balmy air 
And brilliant leaves have made so fair to-day. 

Are weary hearts that find no beauty there. 



24 



Pictures and Fancies 



Through leaves and gently waving boughs 

Of a huge and gnarled old tree 
The slanting rays of the evening sun 

Send dancing beams on me. 

This giant with a hundred arms 

Hath, in its heart, decay 
That silently gnaws, with wasting tooth, 

Its mighty strength away. 

A grand old tree in its mossy age 
Though its proudest days are fled, 

And the winds have torn the knotty boughs; 
And some are hanging dead. 

Yet grandeur clothes the ancient oak, 

And strangely whispers me 
Of beauty that dwells not in graceful shapes, 

Nor in pride of majesty: 

Not strength alone is pictured here. 
Though these branches long may swing 

And battle with the wildest blasts, 
Fierce Winter's storms can bring: 

The grandeur comes of an age antique; 

For the centuries, flying past. 
Behold this giant sentinel 

Still standing strong and fast; 



Pictures and Fancies 



No puny life of fourscore years 

The mighty oak-tree's span; 
Hundreds of years have come and gone 

Since here its life began. 

As softly wave its myriad leaves, 

By evening zeph}^ stirred, 
Their gentle sighing seems to breathe 

To me a pitying word. 

That all my years should count so few, 

Quick speeding to the grave, 
While still the tree, as mocking me. 

Above my dust may wave. 

While thus I mused, a little child 

Came idly playing there; 
And the zephyr fanned her rosy cheeks. 

And tossed her yellow hair; 

Around her head, in golden rays, 

I saw the sunbeams hang; 
And they turned into amber her tangled curls 

While she laughed and gaily sang; 

And often she stopped her happy song 

To prattle in her play. 
And hug the kitten she held in her arms 

In a quaint and motherly way. 

She did not see me where I lay, 
But sat beneath the tree; 



Pictures and Fancies 



And the old, old oak cast down its shade 
On the head of infancy. 

"O Earthl" I cried, "O Mother Earth! 

Why doth thy kindly care 
Nourish for centuries the oak 

And not this infant fair ? 

"Both are your children: why on one 
Such wealth of years bestow ? 

And why this happy, laughing child 
So soon in death lay low ? 

''I cannot solve this riddle, Earth, 
And deem you kind and wise, 

Unless the child hath other life 
Than this beneath the skies!" 

I dare not say that I have won 

The secret of the oak: 
I cannot tell why, long ago. 

Its germ of life awoke; 

Why, through the mould, a tiny plant. 

Six hundred years ago, 
Pushed its green blade in this fair vale, 

A mighty tree to grow; 

I dare not say that it was chance 

That set the acorn here; 
That chance hath sent it kindly rain 

And sunshine every year; 



Pictures and Fancies 



And when, one day, this great tree's trunk 

On the green sod shall lie, 
All man can know is, it hath been, 

But not the reason why. 

If, then, my wisdom cannot learn 

The secret of a tree, 
How can I think to gauge the depths 

Of deeper mystery ? 

To know why, from this happy child 

Her rippling laughter flows ? 
Or why, within her merry eyes 

The golden sunshine glows ? — 

Why she will grow from infancy. 

That here so sweetly plays. 
To cares and sorrows that must come 

In later, sadder days ? 

I cannot know why pain and woe 

Must dim the happiness 
That sparkles now in her glad eyes; 

Why all her artlessness 

Must turn to careful, anxious thought 

As fly the years away; 
Nor why her curls of amber gold 

WiU change to sober gray; 



Nor why, a little later, she 
Will cease her weary breath. 



28 



Pictures and Fancies 



And all of grace and comeliness 
Depart at touch of death. 

And when, old moss-grown tree, beneath 
Your branches' trembling shade, 

Under the sighing of your leaves, 
Her form in earth is laid, 

The simshine, then as beautiful 

As now, will deck the place; 
The zephyr blow as softly then 

As now it fans her face; 

While you, old tree, more mossy grown, 
Will still your branches wave; 

Or silently drop leaves, your tears 
Of grief, upon her grave; 

And still beneath your lofty limbs 

Will little children play; 
With happy laugh and merry voice 

Sing childhood's hours away. 

O veteran of six hundred years ! 

How Cometh age to you ? 
Doth sunshine bring the same sweet joy 

As when your life was new ? 

Doth still your ancient heart rejoice 
When sings the summer breeze, 

Laden with perfume of the flowers, 
And filled with hum of bees ? 



Pictures and Fancies 



Doth the loud song the robin sings 

Upon your topmost bough 
Wake, in your many-circled heart, 

Its gay responses now ? 

And when, in hush of summer nights, 
Your parched leaves drink the dew, 

Doth the old relish of your youth 
Again come back to you ? 

You have no human voice to tell 

Your life's long history, 
Yet doth your silence half unfold 

Your heart of mystery: 

Your grandeur hath a solemn air 

Wherein no gladness dwells; 
The very waving of your boughs 

A tale of sadness tells; 

And even when gay-hearted June 

Tosses your leafy sprays 
With laughing winds she wakes not mirth 

As in your younger days — 

But, turning from your solemn age, 

I look beneath you where 
The little, laughing maiden sits 

With sunlight in her hair — 



Sunlight that dances down to her 
Your twisted boughs among — 



30 



Pictures and Fancies 



Sunlight that floods her happy heart 
While laughs her merry tongue: 

There is no sadness in the notes 

From her glad lips that ring; 
The piping robin stops his song 

To hear this warbler sing. 

O happy one, sing on! I would 
Your youth might always be! 

Forever in your heart abide 
Your mirth of infancy! 

Although you know it not, your song, 

That rings so merrily. 
Hath made my cold philosophy 

Seem doubly cold to me: 

Why should I ponder on the ways 

Of life's strange mystery ? 
Or lose myself in deeps of thought 

That stretch unendingly ? 

Nay, rather let me gaily sing 
Beneath this murmuring tree, 

And, like the sweet child, fill my heart 
With happy minstrelsy! 

O let me take the sunshine in. 

The crimson lighted sky. 
The breath of trees, the bloom of flowers, 

The brook that murmurs by! — 



Pictures and Fancies 



Take to my heart the beautiful 

In childhood's simple lays, 
In all the songs that Nature sings 

In pleasant summer days'. 

O kingly-crowned Philosophy, 

I beg an hour from thee: 
Leave to forget thy awful truths; 

To laugh with infancy ! — 

To banish from my wearied heart 

The dazzle of thy light. 
Thy splendid train, thy wondrous lore. 

And all thy magic might 1 

Nay, darken not thy monarch brow 

Into an angry frown 
Because this infant's golden curls 

Shine brighter than thy crown ! 

What though allegiance sometimes fail 

Its wonted hours to thee ! 
Thou hast thy sceptre and the world 

And an eternity! 

Sing, laughing child, your merry songs 

Of youth and happiness. 
That they may lift my heart above 

The slough of weariness; 

And by their sweet and simple spells 
Charm all my years away. 



32 



Pictures and Fancies 



That I may be a child again 
To join your roundelay! 

Rustle, old oak, your breezy head, 

And mingle in our song! 
I care not for your centuries ! 

I would not live so long ! — 

Unless Old Mother Earth, twice kind, 

With gift of many days. 
Will give me, too, unfading youth. 

To sing her songs of praise! 



Pictures and Fancies 



lEptgram 

Time, stay thy wings! thy tyrant fierceness tame! 
Grant me the years to win, with living breath, 
A little chamber in the House of Fame! 

"There waits for thee," that ruthless tyrant saith. 
His deep eyes kindling in prophetic flame, 
''A little chamber in the House of Death!" 



Pictures and Fancies 



A Marh^n of lEnrljant^b Slattb 

A golden legend of delightful song 

And graceful thought the poet's life hath been; 
And if it chanced not fortunes strange among, 

Romance cast ever its enchanting sheen 

Upon his heart, reflected in his mien. 
Gentle and sweet, as poet's life should be, 

His days were passed with generous acts between, 
And noble words outspoken worthily. 
And always song with its full tide of melody. 

How many hearts his noble Psalm of Life 
Hath lifted from the dust and soil of earth! 

Taught that life's journey, struggles, battle-strife, 
Have grander prizes, and of better worth. 
Than pleasure's thoughtless smile, or laugh of 
mirth ! 

That who would climb the heights of Art to fame 
Must not in idleness await the birth 

Of genius; but, with kindling heart of flame 

And an unceasing toil, win him a deathless name! 

One of a mystic brotherhood was he. 
The wizard warden of enchanted land. 

Where Poesy sheds light of witchery 

On many a lovely scene and marvelous band, 
While Wonder, mingling beautiful and grand 

With homelier types of life, fills all the place 
With charming shapes of bright romance : her hand 

Now pointing to Evangeline's sweet face. 

Now to some dusky chief of Hiawatha's race. 



35 



Pictures and Fancies 



A ^ab iiag- 

A LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF 
RALPH WALDO EMERSON 

May-day, alas, no more in pleasant lays 

His muse shall sing of thee melodious praise! — 

Of thee and the sweet Spring! 

Ah, never more to sing! — 
No more to weave his wisdom into verse, 
And golden thoughts in golden lines rehearse! 

His soul of thought and voicing lips are fled 

From earth: the poet and the sage is dead. 
Who will not weep for him ? — 

No, not for him our eyelids overflow; 

'Tis for ourselves we feel this selfish w^oe; 
For our own loss the tears our eyes bedim. 

He has no loss: translated to the skies, 

To larger life, his earth-freed spirit flies. 
There to transcend, of space, of time, the bounds. 
And all that here the imprisoned soul surrounds. 

Finding that greater good than earth supplies. 
That purer truth, diviner essence, given 
To blossom only in pure airs of Heaven. 

So hath he gone away from sorrowing 

While we are left to languish in our grief; 

And the new May can bring us no relief — 
The new, bright May, his verse no more can sing. 
Although the year was only in its Spring, 

Yet was it Autumn in the poet's life ; 

And with ripe grain was his rich harvest rife — 



36 



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The richest harvest that a life can bring — 
A harvest bountiful of admiration, 
Outspoken love, not of one land, or nation. 

But of all men, uprising in each heart; 

Nor the mere tribute to the poet's art. 

But to the truthful, high, benignant thought 
That into good his every fancy wrought. 

How grand the themes his spirit mused upon ! 
How true the pictures that his fancy traced 
In no faint lines to be by time effaced 

When the clear thought, that drew them, should be 
gone. 
As now hath sadly chanced ! 

Green as the May he sang shall ever be, 
In grateful hearts of men, his memory — 

Greener and greener still, by years enhanced. 
But May, new May, O bring thy fairest flowers. 
And sweetest songs of birds, to fill thy hours; 

For thou hast now a harder task to cheer. 

Than at the opening of a former year. 
When he had voice to sing of them and thee, 
And wake our hearts to Nature's harmony. 

And call us to rejoicing! 

Yet it was fit that he should die in spring — 

When the fair flowers come forth, the gay birds sing; 
When fields and trees put on their coats of green. 

And brightest promises are blossoming; 

For with like promises of hope and bliss 
Would we go forth to that great world unseen 

Whose life will crown the life and hopes of this. 



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Old Year, I must not mourn for thee; 

Nor can forget: 
Thy shadows, with strange witchery, 

Cling round me yet. 

But if I have no tears. Old Year, 

O'er thee to shed, 
It is not that thou wast not dear 

That now art dead. 

For comforts, pleasures, happiness. 

As fled away 
Thy days. Old Year, my thankfulness 

I truly pay. 

And if thy hand of tyrant might, 

O cruel Year, 
Despoiled me of a fond delight, 

A tfeasure dear. 

Yet easier grew the biting stings 

Of every harm. 
As flying hours from noiseless wings 

Dropped healing balm. 

Although thy passing snatched away 
Dear friends from me 

For a brief time, thou canst not stay 
My dead with thee. 



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Of all thy brethren, passed away, 

Not one controls, 
In dungeon of a buried day, 

Imprisoned souls. 

I will not breathe a word of blame, 

Old Year, of thee; 
Nor treasure up against thy name 

An enmity. 

While now the merry bells are ringing 

In the New Year, 
To his young life the welcome bringing 

Around me here. 

Old Year, to thee my thoughts fly back 

In waking dream. 
Like some fond bird on fading track 

Of eve's last beam. 



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Wasted and broken by December days, 

Dying, the Old Year lay: 
Upon his brow the fire-light's ruddy blaze 
Painted a mock of health with crimson rays 

By its fantastic play — 

A mock of health; for his last sun 

Had set, 
And his last hour begun; 

And what of life was lingering yet 
Seemed rather a vague dream of what had been 

Than a reality. 
Upon his face, in deep, expressive lines, was seen' 

Each flash of memory 
As early days came back to him — 

Glad infancy, 
And youth with lusty limb. 

And lustier heart to do, to hope, to dare. 

Before his eyes were strangely pictured there, 
In changeful visionings, 
Springtime's imaginings — 
Fulfilled ? Alas, the hopes youth brings 
To the fresh heart, and the sweet songs it sings 

Of happiness 
Are but the flush that its own beauty flings 

On life, its mystery to light and bless! 

But later visions to the Old Year came. 
All of life's chances as the swift months flew, 



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Not what he hoped, his youthful heart aflame 

With high ambition's fire; 
But what his days permitted him to do, 
Too little of the noble, great and true 

To which great hearts aspire — 
Too much that sad Regret, with many anxious fears, 
Still strives to wash away in her repentant tears. 

Now on the Old Year's face 
The struggle grew apace 
As life's o'erwearied race 

Drew near an end; 
And fantasies 
With memories 

Were seen to blend. 

''Where are my Hours?" he cried; 
"Have they all left my side? 

My golden Hours! my warrior Hours! 

Lo, now I summon all my powers! 
O World, you yet shall feel 
The Present hath a hand of steel, 

And Death, Disaster, Earthquake, Woe, 

May still, upon my bidding, go! 
These all, obedient, on me wait; 
Nor this last hour of life too late 
To launch the bolts of adverse fate. 
And fairest hopes to desolate! 

"But no, 

I will not, like a tyrant, go; 
But peacefully resign 



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The sceptre, that is mine, 

To him whose reign will soon begin - 
Already at the gate he cries 
For entrance;" and the Old Year dies 

As the New Year comes in. 



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El\t Port's Mmtli 

(These lines contain in quotation every allusion that 
Shakespeare has made to the month of his birth.) 
When April comes, a hesitating youth, 
Escaping from the stormy grasp of March, 
Not only for bright summer harbingers 
And mildness after winter's harsher days, 
We hail the gentler month. It hath a grace, 
A fair inheritance that hath come down 
The busy, perilous, and changeful years, 
Bringing another thought than spring to us: 
It is our poet's month. On a spring day — 
"A day in April never came so sweet" ^ 
And goodly in its golden promises 
As that whereon, in England's heart, upsprung 
A poet whose great words have brought full store 
Of all men's blessings; made his parent land 
Forever glorious — On an April day 
Shakespeare, the poet of humanity, 
Sweet singer and philosopher, was bom — 
Our Shakespeare; for his tongue, his fame, are ours; 
Nor can the island of his birth fold in 
His fame that overlaps the bounds of oceans, 
Reaching remotest corners of the earth. 
Still, for that day of old, we love thee, April; 
And if thou hast been called injurious names, 
We will forget them; and thou shalt not be 
To us, for that one birth, a ''spongy April ;"^ 

1. Merchant of Venice, II. ix. 93. 

2. Tempest, IV. i. 65. 



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But ever in thy changeful skies shall shine 

That ancient ''glory of an April day."^ 

The young year loves thee; and most maidenly 

Reflects thy changefulness, all smiles and tears, 

Both happy; for she has not learned the woes 

The dark December of her life may bring. 

"The April 's in her eyes; it is Love's Spring;"^ 

And Love lends "spices to the April day."^ 

Her small, swift-bounding foot, "whose perfect white 

Shows like an April daisy on the grass,"'' 

Flashes its fairness as the nymph flies on 

"When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,"^ 

"Three April perfumes"*^ in his waving locks, 

Catches her eye, enticing her light steps 

To come and dance away the joyous hours 

"Twixt May and April"'' in gay merriment. 

Bright month, thy poet loved thee, and thy freshness 

Breathes pleasantness and joy in his sweet verse, 

And perfume that "smells April,"^ lovesomeness 

That cries how "men are April when they woo."^ 

So "youthful April shall,"^^' by all the lovers 

Of him who sang its charms, be often blessed 

For his good words; and, in the years to come, 

"When well-apparelled April on the heel 

1. Two Gentlemen of Verona, I. iii. 85. 

2. Antony and Cleopatra, III. ii. 43. 

3. Timon of Athens, IV. iii. 41. 

4. Lucrece, 395. 

5. Sonnet, 98. 2. 

6. Sonnet, 104. 7. 

7. Lovers' Complaint, 102. 

8. Merry Wives of Windsor, III. ii. 69. 

9. As You Like It, IV. i. 147- 
10. Titus Andronicus, III. i. 18. 



44 



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Of limping Winter treads,"^ with him will come 

"Remembrance of a man in April bom;"^ 

And to the beauty, ''peering in April's front,"^ 

Give added grace. Nor must we blame his month, 

That "fourscore of April"'' birthdays were not given 

To cheer the world with golden years of verse; 

Nor that in "April died"^ his heart of song — 

Died? nay! his song, his soul of poesy. 

His grandeur and his sweetness, have not died; 

But live immortal in his deathless verse, 

Victors of Time, of Death; of Accident; 

Making the world more happy, noble, wise; 

Stirring in every heart harmonious strings, 

Divinest music of the human soul ; 

In which thy bard, O April! shall live on 

While men recall the past, and have the gift 

To feel, beyond the brutes, gay Springtime's promises, 

Celestial hopes transfiguring earthly things; 

While Age, with memories of full, ripe years, 

"Calls back the lovely April of its prime,"*' 

Or Youth rejoices in its best delights, 

"With April's first-bom flowers and all things rare."' 

1. Romeo and Juliet, I. ii. 27. 

2. Troilus and Cressida, I. ii. 189. 

3. Winter's Tale, IV. iiii. 3. 

4. Winter's Tale, IV. iiii. 281. 

5. Sonnet, 3. 10. 

6. King John, IV. ii. 120. 

7. Sonnet, 21. 7. 



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Ruined and broken, old and gray, 
Relic of by-gone feudal day, 
And antique customs, passed away, 
Scene of what long-forgotten lay. 
Thy former glories, who shall say ? 
Although no ancient records may. 
And legend and tradition fail, 
Thy hidden past to now unveil. 
Imagination tells the tale: 
It kindles fires that weirdly show 
How here romance, in wondrous glow. 
Lighted the days of long-ago 
With stranger light than now we know, 
Mysterious fancy's overflow; 
Making forgotten history bright 
With flush of medieval light. 
In which antiquity's dark night 
Dawns into day before our sight, 
, Revealing what Time's rapid flight 
Would hide beneath his centuries — 
For scenes as full of mysteries 
As fancy paints with fervid power 
Have been thy own in former hour 
When youth and passion were thy dower, 
Casting their spells of witchery 
And all the wonders that may be 
Gathered within their glamourie 
In full enchantment over thee. 
Thou medieval mystery. 

Gray Tower of Sonnenberg! 



46 



Pictures and Fancies 



Thy crumbling walls, with moss o'ergrown, 
Tell of romance from every stone; 
Nor silent, for thy ruin lone 
Rustles its ivy with a tone 
Suggesting marvels all thy own : 

The maiden's sigh, the lover's tale. 

The prancing steed, the knight in mail. 
The adventurous quest, the courage high, 
The deeds of golden chivalry; 

Or wilder still, mad fancy brings 

A mystic wealth of wondrous things : 
Giant and dragon, dwarf and gnome; 
And thy old walls their ancient home; 

Or how enchantment's magic spell 

Wrought strange adventures that befell 
The errant knight and wandering maid, 
And here their scenes of passion laid; 

Her dungeoned knight from chains to free, 

His lady stole the magic key. 
And, all the wizard's spells in vain. 
Released her lover from his pain — 

What walls so strong true love to stay ? 

Not thine, old tower, in strongest day! — 
So did'st thou see these lovers fly 
Far from enchanter's cruel eye. 

Thus, out of feudal chivalry 

And fancy's host of imagery. 

Build we again thy history. 

Thou medieval mystery, 
Gray Tower of Sonnenberg! 



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Doubtless thy walls, so still to-day, 

So lovely in the sun's last ray. 

Whose charm transforms from gray to gay. 
Have rung with clash and clang of fight 
As storming war-men climbed thy height, 

And arrows sang beneath the skies 

That now the golden sunset dyes. 

And captives wailed, with bitter cries, 

Beneath their victors' cruel eyes, 
While hoarse, wild shouts of victory 
Drowned dying groans of misery; 

As oft hath chanced in ancient day 

Of medieval time; and may 

Still chance while war's unpitying rage 
Survives all change from age to age. 
And man its cruelty will wage; 
Nor modern time can yet assuage 

Its woes, though much enlarged the skill 

To fashion all the arms that kill 
From the rude art of that old day 
When feudal lord here held his sway, 

Careless alike of right or wrong 

While thy old walls were new and strong. 
Thy wars are over many a year, 
And thou art sunk in slumber here; 

From century to century 

Sleeping while Time broods over thee, 

What dreams must haunt thy memory. 

Thou medieval mystery, 
Gray Tower of Sonnenberg! 



48 



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©if? ilnutttatn Irnok 

Along the mountain -side my path, 

In many curving lines, 
Wound in and out; above me towered 

The silence of the pines. 

But soon, precipitous, a crag 

Rose steeply over all; 
More thinly here the trees and shrubs 

Clung to the mossy wall. 

A narrow ledge, with here and there 
Steps rudely shaped, the way, 

Through wild but charming solitude, 
Most picturesquely lay. 

Above, the sky was flecked with clouds 

Upon its deepest blue, 
Contrasting with the green of leaves 

When seen their verdure through. 

Or far away along the heights. 

Against the azure sky, 
The fairy tracery of the trees, 

Through vistas, caught my eye. 

And soon I came where narrow grew 
The gorge, high walls between. 

Where shadows filled, with twilight dim, 
The deep and dark ravine. 



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Below, a noisy streamlet ran, 

And, while I passed, its roar 
Grew louder as it chafed and dashed 

Against its rocky shore. 

The walls were tapestried with moss. 

And here, in wild display, 
A tangle dense of birch and beech 

O'erhung the narrow way. 

Above the wildly rushing stream 

A wooden foot-bridge hung, 
Its rail oft wet with flying spray 

In tiny jets upflung. 

Down their rough bed the waters leaped, 
And sang with blithesome glee; 

Their tinkling voices sweetly joined 
In sylvan melody. 

This dashing, splashing mountain brook. 
Whose cold spray wet my face. 

From lofty steeps above had come 
In swift and dizzy race; 

Beneath the rustic bridge it roared, 

And scampered merrily; 
With mimic wrath it leaped aloft. 

And shouted cheerily. 

I looked above, where, through the trees, 
I spied its foaming track 



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Far upward till its flash was lost 
Among the pine-trees black. 

The little torrent loudly sang, 

And, in its merry play. 
Seemed shouting all the wondrous things 

It found along the way. 

Then, while I listened, its wild din 

Cast a strange charm on me: 
Far up the mountain heights I climbed 

In fancy, dizzily — 

Far up where Alpine roses bloom. 

To please no mortal eye. 
Where the wild chamois lightly leaps 

To pastures 'mid the sky — 

Far up, beyond the woods of pine. 
To steeper heights where grow 

The blossoms of the edelweiss, 
White as the moimtain snow — 

Far up where, dim, the glacier gleams 
Adown the mountain's brow — 

Far up where, roimd the topmost peak. 
The clouds are gathering now. 

And while I mused, the babbling tongues 

Beneath me seemed to tell. 
In shout and murmur, of the things 

That, on their path, befell : 



SI 



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It was a gossip strange and weird 

With noisy chatterings 
Of rocks and snow and trees and flowers, 

Even fantastic things: 

How a vast stretch of ''Stony Sea," 

Whereon no verdure grows. 
Is sometimes lit with gleaming fires 

When the red sunset glojvs; 

How a great cavern lurks below 

This rock-sea's mighty range. 
Where dwelt of old a dragon brood 

Of mythic monsters strange; 

How, in majestic pride, great peaks 

Point grandly to the sky. 
Tearing the banners of the clouds 

When tempests o'er them fly. 

But, ah, how lone those upland steeps! 

How silent, cold, and dread! 
Sleeping amid the spectral clouds 

The slumber of the dead ! 

Though grandeur clothes the mountain peaks 

With kingliness of might. 
And beauty gilds them with bright beams 

Of all-enchanting light. 

Yet loud the laughing voices cried: 
"We would not be so great; 



52 



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•These woodland dells, these blooming flowers, 
Are dearer than such state! 

'And though the pines seem proud and grim. 

Yet, when soft breezes blow. 
They whisper things one would not guess, 

Seeing how prim they grow; 

'And once, when winds tore madly down 

The stricken mountain side. 
They bent to us their stately heads, 

Forgetful of their pride. 

'Though rough our path, our babblings wild 

Have not a touch of fear 
Since we have left the lofty heights, 

And come to gossip here. 

' Grandeur and pride are throned above, 

And there we let them be; 
Content in these sweet woodland vales 

To prattle merrily." 



/ 



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®lyp Ktttg of tt|f Klnkt 

A LEGEND OF KOENIG'S SEE IN THE BAVARIAN 
HIGHLANDS 

As we skim o'er the lake see how grandly on high 
The great crags, bare or pine-clad, reach up to the sky; 
Rugged forms of grim giants the steep mountains take. 
Whose weird shadows are creeping, like ghosts, o'er 
the lake. 

They would awe us with wonder, and chill us with 

fright, 
But, above them, we see fairy spirits of light 
Where a fleet of white clouds has been caught by their 

crests 
Till a silvery veil on the mountain tops rests. 

And the sunshine is bright on those isles of the air. 
While each crag's rocky harshness grows smiling and 

fair; 
E'en the pines, that far up on the precipice grow, 
Into beauty are brought in the mirror below. 

Our gay Tyrolese boatman stands up at his oar; 
But his daughter, low-seated, propelleth us more; 
Though he labor but little, he talketh alway 
Of the wonder and beauty of his Koenig's See. 

Now he ceaseth from rowing, the echoes to wake, 
And the sound of his shot crasheth over the lake. 
To be quickly caught up and roared down from the 

sky, 
While from peak unto peak the loud thimderings fly, 



54 



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As if voices of giants outspoke from the cloud, 
And the din of their speaking were shouted aloud: 
**0 awaken, my brothers! what watch do you keep ?" 
*'Nay; awake us not thus from the silence of sleep I 

"We were dreaming remembrance of days when the 

earth 
In her youth, with sharp pangs, to the mountains gave 

birth; 
When her breast was upheaved by an Infinite Power, 
Nature torn into wreck in that primitive hour. 

''But, alas, what long ages have lingered away 
Since the tumult and throb of that terrible day ! 
How have centuries come! how have centuries past. 
Until nothing but slumber is left us at last!" 

Midst the shouting of giants, one spirit of dread 
The loud chorus of voices out-thundered, and said: 
"I am king of these mountains; the answer I make 
To each summons that climbs my steep sides from the 
lake. 

"They have called me the Watzmann in this later 

time, 
But their elders, beholding my summit sublime, 
How, aloft o'er the lake, rise my pinnacles high, 
Named me Koenig, and deemed that a monarch was I. 

"But the snow on my head is too icily cold. 
And the heart in my bosom too withered and old; 
For the young there is kingship : remember I may, 
The bright glory of youth in my earlier day. 



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''But remembrance comes only in slumber and dream; 
Although bright on my head the warm sunshine may 

beam, 
It can cheer me no more; nor may melt with its rays 
The white robe that enfolds me and chills me always. 

"So when fitfully wakened strange voices of sleep 
In my thunder resound, and roll down o'er the deep, 
They disturb not my slumbers that coldly await, 
Through the eons of ages, the edicts of fate. 

' ' Mother Earth, art thou aged, or still in thy prime ? — 
Or perchance 'tis a fable, this legend of Time! — 
I have felt thy great bosom beneath me upheave: 
Thou art older and colder, I surely believe. 

"Now, my brothers, I sink into slumber profound; 
If still thunder my voice, it is only a sound — 
Come, ye dreams of the glory of Eld, and enfold me. 
That, so dreaming, the Earth's youthful splendor shall 
hold me!" 

Still I mused in much wonder at voices so old. 
And the tale of the mountains those echoes had told, 
Till the Tyrolese boatman, with splash of his oar. 
From my dream roused me up to the present once 
more. 



56 



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MuBkB 

Though I think that I know my next neighbor full well, 
And his face and his voice and his thoughts I can tell ; 
Yet perchance he has borne, all the years, past my face 
A strange drama of which I have caught not a trace. 

All the world goes uncaring, unheeding, indeed, 
Though misfortune's sharp spear maketh sad bosoms 

bleed; 
And a Hamlet, unknown, carries round in his breast 
A wild drama, close-hidden and never confessed. 

We may think that too quiet and dull is his mind, 
The hot rage of emotion and passion to find; 
So he plods on before us, but hides from our view 
The same tragedy pains that Prometheus knew. 

The Greek actors wore masks lest their art should 

show trace. 
On a picture of beauty, of life's commonplace; 
But we cover, with commonplace, passion and pride. 
While the masks that we wear, life's mad dramas oft 

hide. 

But we think not of beauty; we think not of art; 
Closely holding the mask while we play out the part; 
All our masking and playing we hide with a smile, 
But the drama goes on to the death all the while. 

The bright glare of the footlights, the stage's trained art. 
Seek in vain to enhance the wild rage of the heart: 



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They belittle the passions, burlesquing the strife 
That oft tortures a soul in a drama of life. 

Every life is a drama of feeling or doing; 

Unseen are the demons forever pursuing, 

While we listen to babble, and deem that no fear 

Can be lurking beneath the loud laugh that we hear. 

Hidden deep under life's common customs and shows 
The great river of feeling, in swift eddies, flows; 
And our acts are most often but froth on the wave, 
While beneath runs the current, to lose or to save. 



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3f« i^t lanarnn SIgrol 

A lovely land of uplands high! 

A cloudland oft in summer sky; 

But when the sun shines out, its light 

Makes these great mountains richly bright, 

And this Bavarian Tyrol seem 

The shining landscape of a dream, 

Too picturesquely fair to be 

A waking hour's reality ! 

Majestic in the pure, bright air 

Rise Alpine peaks sublimely fair; 

While, clothed in tints of varying green. 

Fair valleys stretch the heights between, 

Or lose all tints in deep ravine 

That cleaves the mountain-side, as though 

A giant's sword had dealt the blow. 

A silent host of dusky firs 

Climbs roughly up the mountain spurs; 

A clearness in this upper air 

Makes all the hues of distance fair; 

And wondrous tints of blue appear 

Through magic charm of atmosphere. 

On foothills dark the pines are green; 
Above, the snow-clad crests are seen 
Catching the clouds, while soft below, 
O'er mountain slopes their shadows go; 
Or gathering hosts of darkening cloud 
Moimtains and valleys dimly shroud; 



59 



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Or blackening into tempest dread 
Demons of storm fight overhead. 
But when the rage of wind and rain 
Is o'er, the sun bursts forth again, 
Building, in vivid tints hung low 
On far off crags, a brilliant bow 
Whose double arch of lustrous glow 
Soon dies upon the mountain snow. 
Again serene, the peaks on high 
Catch the fair sunlight; gleaming sky 
And snow and crags and pine-trees green 
Are blended in enchanting scene. 

Those lofty peaks, on which the rack 

Of angry storm was late so black. 

Seem now a palace builded high 

For Summer gods in fairy sky, 

A bright Valhalla, gleaming there 

Sun-tinted, most divinely fair; 

Whose mythic dwellers must belong 

To fable-world of tale and song, 

The glorious ones of storied Eld 

When Time was young that Earth once held 

Celestial maids, heroic men. 

That Earth can never breed again; 

Seen only now in pictured show 

When high imaginations glow, 

Or printed page or canvas bright 

Brings back the myths of Eld to sight — 

But this is Art's enchantment; now 

'Tis Nature paints the mountain's brow' 



60 



Pictures and Fancies 



With beauty so divinely grand 

We see the touch of God's great hand. 

Now half a god's serenity, 

Above the world, has come to me : 

Passion and trouble rage below, 

But I am high above their flow — 

High up on Obersalzberg's side. 

Resting content whate'er betide 

In valleys where the stir of life 

Goes on with toil and petty strife. 

So once they deemed that Zeus, the high, 

Looked downward from Olympian sky, 

With a divine serenity, 

Upon man's ant-hill, busily 

Struggling with passions, strife, hopes, toil, 

Unrest in life's so strange turmoil. 

Sweet Peace upon the mountains rests. 

And crowns with beauty their great crests — 

A beauty so serenely bright, 

It fills the heart with pure delight; 

While messages divinely fly 

From mountain peaks along the sky 

To every watching human eye. 

Telling mysteriously of lore 

Above the reach our thoughts may soar, 

Supreme, divine intelligence 

Beyond the narrow range of sense — 

Of wonderful, unwritten things 

This beauty of the mountains sings. 



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Shakespeare! his name 
Rings in our ears through centuries of fame; 
Or softly steals 
Into the heart like charming melody, 
Blending with all it feels 
By the sweet influence of poetry; 
Calling on joy to cheer us merrily, 
Or loftier thoughts to yield philosophy. 
Or bright imagination to unfold 
Gay wings of burnished gold, 
And bear us through his fairy realms of poesy. 

Shakespeare 1 his wand 
Is an enchanter's in its witchery: 
Its high command 
Controls us with delightful mastery : 
Care is forgot; 
Dullness is not; 
We, too, are kings, and share his potency; 
Poets and singers we, charmed by his wizardry. 
No spell he flings. 
No song he sings, 
But he has made it ours by his sweet sorcery. 
We look within 
Each heart his magiq has laid bare. 
And find our kinship there: 
His " touch of nature makes the whole world kin." 



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Shakespeare I 
How brave a band 
Of mighty and of lovely ones appear 
Out of his magic verse, and throng on every hand — 
Fair forms of grace, bright figures of command ! 
When, by his sway. 
Open the gates that wondrous scenes display, 
What countless shapes, in marvelous array. 
Enchant the hour 
That yields us to the great magician's power! 

Shakespeare, forever young ! 
His verses on each tongue 
Have ever charm to win fresh blossoms of the spring 
From youthful hearts that feel their quick awakening; 
And even sober age, 
Inspired by his page. 
Grows young again and sings its youthful songs, 
And feels the joy that imto youth belongs. 
Finding that myth a truth. 
Fountain of deathless youth. 
In inspirations, that divinely start 
To ecstacy 
In every human heart 
When touched by his enchanting wand of poesy. 



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The young Have never time to know 

Their happiness : 
As bees disport from flower to flower, 
Tasting of sweetness every hour 

In mad excess, 
So giddily their rounds they go 
Until some harsh and pitiless season drives 
Them — as the honey-seekers to their hives — 

To memories 
Of sweet, or sour, wherewith they store their lives 

For later days. 

In youth's wild fever, joy and pain 
Are mingled in hot heart and brain; 

But age is free 
To live its pleasures o'er again. 
Recalling joys, forgetting pain. 

In memory. 



64 



Pictures and Fancies 



I lay at night 'neath the pine-trees' shade, 
And heard their sighs as the wind swept past; 

I loved the sound that their branches made, 
The song they sang in the wind's wild blast — 

I heard the yelp of the straining pack 

When first to view came the hunted game; 

Gaily I echoed the glad sounds back, 
And my hunter heart was all aflame — 

I stood by the sacred Druid stone. 

And heard the chant with its grand refrain 

While I felt a power beyond my own 

Sweep over my soul in its mystic strain — 

When warriors sat round the galley's rim 
Our long oars dipped in the flashing sea 

While we sang of Freya, her battle hymn. 
Our souls inspired by its melody. 

Last night we wandered from all apart 
On the great, gray ocean's marge of sand, 

Where I asked the gift of her maiden heart. 
And clasped in my own her trembling hand; 

The sweetest sound that was ever heard 
Was the whispered word she spoke to me; 

And my own rough heart was as madly stirred 
By that soft word as man's heart can be. , 



■6s 



Pictures and Fancies 



O tell me not of the songs they sing 

In Odin's palace above the skies ! 
Valhalla, thy halls may loudly ring 

With the songs of the Vikings that round me rise; 

They never can drown the low, sweet tone 
Of her voice, last night, on the ocean shore; 

Her word will live in my heart alone 
When Odin's palace shall be no more. 



66 



Pictures and Fancies 



Daphne [alone] 

Calidon, my only one! 
Why doth my true love tarry? 

Calidon [coming] 

For gold I've been, a ring to win, 
That thou and I may marry. 

Daphne 

How could'st thou stay so long away, 
My shepherd swain, my Calidon ? 

Calidon 

I've been to bring a wedding ring, 
To put thy charmmg finger on. 

Daphne [taking ring] 

A wedding ring, the lovely thing! 
How gott'st thou this, my Calidon? 

Calidon 

1 cut the locks from off my flocks. 
And took the wool to Carleon. 

Daphne 

Whatl cut the locks from gentle flocks! 
Alas, poor things, I know they '11 freeze! 



67 



Pictures and Fancies 



Calidon 

But thou, with me, wilt happy be 
In a warm cot among the trees. 

Daphne 

O Calidon, thou cruel one! 
Thy heart is very hard, I see. 

Calidon 

Daphne dear, thou 'rt talking queer: 
My heart is never hard to thee. 

Daphne [crying] 

The little dears, sheared to their ears; 

1 know that they most cold will be! 

Calidon 

'Tis fools would keep wool on their sheep; 
Thou art silly so to scold at me. 

Daphne 

I am cross and mad; it is too bad 
To be such cause of misery. 

Calidon 

I pray thee, nay; put far away 

That frowning look from thy dear eye. 

Daphne 

If silly. Sir, I still prefer 
To stand aloof from cruelty. 



68 



Pictures and Fancies 



Calidon 

O innocent! what harm is meant? 
Thy senses, dear, have surely fled. 

Daphne [giving back the ring] 

Sir Cruelty, keep not for me 

Your ring — some other maid go wed. 

Calidon 

O Daphne, stay! go not away; 
Nor treat thy swain so cruelly! 

Daphne 

Until your flocks have grown new locks 
And fleeces full, speak not to me. 

Calidon 

Daphne ! — she 's gone ! If in her scorn 
She were less fair, then it might be. 
Her word I'd take, another make 
My bride; and from her chains be free. 

Daphne [returning] 

O Calidon, forsaken one, 
What wilt thou do if I relent ? 

Calidon 

Whate'er thy will, so love me still, 
And life with thee be sweetly spent. 



69 



Pictures and Fancies 



Daphne 

Fitting for me, to fickle be; 

But, shepherd, be thou always kind. 

Calidon 

Share thou my cot, my happy lot 
No ills of life will ever mind. 

Daphne [thoughtfully] 

I '11 sew some stuff for them, enough 
To keep the sheep from freezing wind. 

Calidon 

Thou *rt sweet as fair, and none may dare 
To say thy heart is e'er unkind. 

Daphne 

Well! where 's the ring? O lovely thing! 
Shepherd, we will be wed tomorrow. 

Calidon 

My heart is gay; I haste away, 
A priest and cot to beg, or borrow. 

Daphne [alone] 

If he should know I love him so, 
I could not make him humor me: 
So our weak sex must often vex 
Our shepherd lads, or servants be. 



70 



Pictures and Fancies 



iSift 3ff0mttatn 

In mad career 
Are dancing here 
The spirits of the water: 
Quaint shapes appear, to laugh and jeer, 
As down the bright drops patter. 
In hollow way 
Beneath the clay 
Their tinkling feet have run, 
To greet the day with frolic play, 
Upleaping to the sun. 

These elves have fled 
Their native bed, 
And here most cunningly 
They have been led, with fairy tread 
To caper airily. 
Hark, how they cry. 
As forth they fly, 
And shout their glad huzzas: 
''This stairway high, to mount the sky. 
Will toss us to the stars!" 



As pure and white 

The waters bright 

In crystal streams outpour, 

Their sparkles write, in words of lightj 

This legend evermore: 



71 



Pictures and Fancies 



"Who stops to drink 

Upon the brink 

Of our o 'erflowing brim 

Need never think his lips should shrink 

From what we pour for him : 

"No poison foul 

Is in our bowl 

To madden heart and brain; 

No wicked bane to give him pain, 

Or noble manhood stain. 

Fly from the charms 

And baleful harms, 

Round madding cups that cling, 

To soothing calms and healing balms 

That our pure waters bring!" 



Pictures and Fancies 



MnBttn Atonbattta 

A swan swims on the bright, unruffled stream; 
Below, I see his double softly gleam; 
Invisible to the white swimmer 's eyes 
The snowy phantom that beneath him lies : 
And so, methought, our eyes may never see 
Angelic shapes, perchance our company. 



SONNETS 



Pictures and Fancies 



A sonnet is a jewel that should shine 

With lustre like a diamond; its light, 
Refracted by each facet, gleaming bright 

From a clear central fire; its every line 

Wrought by the poet's art in fashion fine; 
But if he shape its brilliance not aright. 
Although the gem be precious, ruined quite 

Is all its beauty and its fair design. 

Whether it hath the diamond's purity, 
The ruby's depth of passion, or express 
Hope like the emerald, it yet must glow 
With poet inspiration, and must be 
A thing of beauty, truth, or daintiness. 
Fashioned by art, its preciousness to show. 



Pictures and Fancies 



His artist hand unlocks the silver gates 
Of song; and happy syllables, set free, 
Leap gaily forth in lightsome liberty; 

Yet each, submissive to the master, waits 

To bear the thought his poesy creates. 

Nor like Pandora's imps these puppets be, 
But move in marshaled lines of minstrelsy. 

Each in true measure with harmonious mates. 

Sometimes they laugh like moimtain brooks at play; 

Or sing enchanting strains of melody; 

Or through dark forest paths with Enid stray; 

Or dance, like fairies, round an elfin ring; 

Or chant deep anthems as the pine-tops swing; 
Or sigh, with lone (Enone, life away. 



78 



Pictures and Fancies 



"Only a player! and his ancestry 

Derived from yeoman sires! From such a line 
How could there spring an intellect divine ? 

Shakespeare? O, no: no mighty soul was he! 

In Bacon, Raleigh, the true Shakespeares see. 
Can the celestial light of genius shine 
On low-bom lives ? Would Heaven, with large 
design, 

God-like endow one of the yeomanry ? " 

Thus chatter they who, to divinity 

Of genius, would construct a brazen key. 

Or figure poesy up like paltry sum. 

So, when a lion dies, base jackals come 
To rend the kingly, and make hideous night 
With dismal howling o 'er his fallen might. 



79 



Pictures and Fancies 



Beneath thy inky cloak what mystery, 

Hidden yet half revealed, would cheat our eyes ? 

What brooding thought in thy sad bosom lies. 
To stain young life with deep-dyed melancholy ? 
Haunting thy side stalks grim-eyed Tragedy, 

While superstitious terrors darkly rise — 

Wringing our hearts with painful sympathies — 
And push thee to thy fatal destiny. 

Thou canst not hide the struggle in thy breast: 

Like doomed Laocoon's, within the folds 
Of deadly serpents, must thy anguish be; 

In vain thy mystery; for nature holds 
Such enmity to Madness, 'tis confessed 
The mocking monster that doth torture thee. 



80 



Pictures and Fancies 



A gentle Briton! Not the distant age, 

Nor all the myths and marvels of that time 
Through which the master makes her fortunes 
climb, 

A royal princess and a strolling page. 

Can keep her from our hearts. Her woes engage; 
Her innocence, amid a snare of crime, 
Shines, like her constancy, with light sublime, 

Filling Belarius' cave, her harborage. 

With such unsullied brightness that it seems 
No longer far away, nor mythical. 

Like pure affection in the tender eyes 

Of those who love, her soul upon us beams. 
Winning for Imogen the hearts of all. 

Filling our souls with loving sympathies. 



8i 



Pictures and Fancies 



Clear type of gentle, trustful womanhood! 
All woman in that spirit which still finds 
In some great heart, though rude, the tie that 
binds 

Enduringly her own. Not for her good. 

But his, her spirit moves; its every mood 
Is tempered unto his. Her eye it blinds 
To acts that cry out to the very winds 

His faults, by her alone misunderstood. 

She thinks of naught but her idolatry. 
Setting its cross up in her faithful life, 
And kneeling there, with fervent prayer and 
thought. 
Excuses coldness, harshness, cruelty. 
At length, like Hindoo, this too faithful wife 
Is crushed beneath her car of Juggernaut. 



82 



Pictures and Fancies 



A Utatntt of Ntsljt 

In sleep a regal vision came to me, 

Queenly in majesty: my dreaming sight 
Beheld, in her dark, trailing garments. Night 

Sparkling with gleaming stars, whose brilliancy 

Studded her sable robes like jewelry. 

Beneath her feet the crescent moon 's pale light 
Made all her goddess presence softly bright. 

Upon my slumber came all dreamily 
Her voice like low-toned music: "I bring sleep 
To soothe the world aweary of bright Day, 

My sun-crowned, splendid brother. His domain 
Is Earth 's great host of energies. I keep 
My vigil o'er its rest; and my soft sway 

Restores the vital strength he wastes again. " 



83 



Pictures and Fancies 



Heard on the mountain above Lake Maggiore 

Softly I hear, through pure, bright morning air, 
The chime of Sabbath bells; all else is still: 
From many belfrys rise sweet sounds until 

Clear music floats o 'er all the mountain fair, 

Lulling harsh memories of cark and care. 

Religion haunts the air with strains that fill 
My heart with such devotion that my will, 

Amid this Sabbath sweetness, may not dare 
To be a heretic. The sweet-toned bells 

Make me a convert, not to priest, nor creed, 

Nor church, nor altar; but to faith divine 
In pure religion; and their music tells 

How Goodness reigns o 'er every thought and 
deed. 

Filling the heart with healing grace benign. 



84 



Pictures and Fancies 



At a^t MamBttr^ OII|urrI| nf tij? ilabnmta Sri 

BuBBSi 

At Locarno 

In peaceful loveliness, like a fair dream, 
Silence and beauty here around me lie: 
The azure lake, the turquoise-tinted sky, 

The snow-topped mountains splendid in the beam 

Of the low sun, and, on the lake, its gleam 
In flashing brightness. Such a sympathy 
Hath mind with nature, that it seemed to me 

A cloistered brother I could be, and deem 
My life most happy, passed in scene like this; 
But, while I mused, a brown-robed monk 
appeared. 

In whose bowed face was no tranquillity. 
But sharp anxiety instead of bliss; 

At which my former fancy now I feared. 

That nature 's smile must bring its peace to me. 



8s 



Pictures and Fancies 



At Locarno 

Deep like a basin, in encircling rim 

Of mountain heights, this Alpine village lies. 

The glassy lake reflects from cloudless skies 
Their brilliant tints . B ehind the western brim 
Sinks down the sun, and purple shadows dim 

The rocky slopes; but when the sunlight dies, 

A sudden glory, with strange glimmer, flies 
Along the east, where ruddy splendors limn 

The mountains till they bum with fairy light, 

Red, red as embers, beautiful and bright. 
In such bright splendor may our virtues show 

At sunset hour of life's activity! 

How beautiful the rosy tints will be 
Of every good deed 's heaven-lit afterglow ! 



86 



Pictures and Fancies 



Mtmns 

**I see no use in them," quoth Peter Bell, 

''These wild flowers of the woods; they bloom 

and die 
In secret nooks where not a human eye 
Looks on their blossoming. It were as well 
A constant blight their opening buds befell. " 

He knows their use whose heart of sympathy 
Throbs in response to nature's poesy; 
Who hears sweet song-tones ring their rhythmic 
swell 
Of music in the flowers. Though no eye view 
Its beauty, who can say the blooming vale 
Is purposeless ? the blossom-painted sod 

Without a use ? Their tints of charming hue 
May sing to angels, as to men, a tale, 
In mystic verse, of harmonies of God. 



87 



Pictures and Fancies 



What though I hear upon my window pane 

The dreary dashing of December rain; 

And all beyond my little, bright domain 

Be black and cheerless! Darkness threats in vain; 

For here are friends whose counsel and whose store, 
In lavish wealth, are freely given to me; 

Nor do they frown although I ask for more, 
Unsatisfied with prodigality. 

My books are friends and servants always true: 
Though cold the world, their kindly pages glow 

With cordial cheer, while Fancy 's genial crew 
Leap from the lines, dull thoughts to overthrow. 

And if I love some favored one the best, 

No pangs of jealousy disturb the rest. 



88 



Pictures and Fancies 



1? i£nxB 

Thirty-five copies, paper Japanese, 

The etchings, proofs — You ask me how they're 

better 
Than copies for the million where each letter. 
Page, title, print, is set the same as these — 
They're better if their choiceness better please. 
Do you love Art ? She makes you here her 

debtor; 
You cannot be, of beauty, a forgetter; 
Then drop devoutly down upon your knees. 
And worship with true bibliomaniac zeal 
This typographic idol. Dear, indeed, 
Are limited editions, numbered books; 

But count not cost when Beauty bids you kneel, 
And, for her dainty pleasures, warmly plead — 
At least, you must not when she 's a De Luxe. 



89 



Pictures and Fancies 



"Aye-ho! aye-hol"the sylvan faun outcried; 

"How fresh the breeze! how sweet the joyous 
day! 

How fair the world in blooming, fragrant May! 
Come, brother brutes — I will not be denied — 
Lie down with me, this laughing brook beside, 

And I will pipe you measures blithely gay 

And sweet as nightingale's most lovesome lay! 
O trees and shrubs and flowers, one kindred wide 
Is ours! of Nature's motherhood are we, 

Her happy children ! All my heart cries out 
The joyful brotherhood that it would tell. 
List to my pipe! its jovial song shall be 

The loves that nature 's buxom voices shout — 
Join, dear companions; let our chorus swell!" 



Pictures and Fancies 



Fair Moon, hast thou the power — as thou dost 
seem — 

To fill thy face with silent sympathy ? 

To hold, from thy lone orb of mystery. 
Commune with human hearts ? Thy silver beam 
Hath shed weird charm, in its beguiling gleam. 

To many eyes uplifted unto thee 

For help, or hope, amidst perplexity. 
To read, in thy fair face, life's troubled dream. 

Or dost thou, pallid witch, inspire the soul 
With fancies as uncertain as thy light. 
Making men mad with hopes, ambitions vain; 
Alluring onward to some shining goal 

Too soon obscured in disappointing night; 
Quenching all hopes in unextinguishable pain ? 



Pictures and Fancies 



©Iff Wih ^4l0BB 

Its broken walls are gilded by each ray 

Of sunset; and this lovely evening hour 
Makes beautiful the ruined arch and tower 

Where ivy mantles over long decay. 

Our thoughts are borne far backward to the day 
When these great battlements were walls of 

power, 
And not, as now, a medieval dower 

Of beauty from the Past. This ruin gray. 
High on the mountain top, then ruled the land; 
And its fierce robber lord looked widely down 

On the low country subject to his sway, 
Sending abroad his predatory band 

To levy tribute in each pass and town — 

A thing of dread, not beauty, in that day. 



Pictures and Fancies 



And this was Carthage! Bare the hill-sides lie 
As though no mighty Past were buried here. 
I close my eyes: lo, suddenly appear 
The olden shapes of Punic history! 
Towers, palaces, and temples pierce the sky; 
I see great fleets of ships: afar and near 
The bay is white with sails. And whither 
steer 
These ships? — To conquer Rome. — The phantoms 
fly: 
Gone are the hosts that sailed with Hannibal; 
Gone the majestic city — all are gone. 
My vision was a dream, a memory 
Of Carthage in her ancient glory. All 
That now I see is meagre, sad, forlorn. 
Save lovely tints in azure sky and sea. 



93 



Pictures and Fancies 



What vague ambitions haunt the mind of youth! 

Life 's possibilities — how vast they seem ! 

What splendid figures on hope 's canvas gleam, 
Wondrous, though unsubstantial, forms of truth. 
Never, alas, to be the prize in sooth 

Of life 's long labors ! Truth ? is truth a dream ? 

Are fair ideals, that so brightly beam 
In expectation, all in vain ? No ruth 
Hath destiny; and life is pitiless: 

Its daily needs and duties push aside. 
With tedious details, all its grandest things; 
Greatness and splendor lost in littleness; 

Our dreams are naught, while petty things 
abide; 
And genius falls to earth with broken wings. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Beauty was wedded once to soberness: 
She was a butterfly with gilded wings; 
He was a moth, one of those quiet things 

Content to live unnoted. One may guess 

How he admired when in her sun-bright dress 
His wife flew by, the joy that Summer brings 
And all the season's blithesome whisperings 

About her wings; and his fond heart would bless 
Her happy fortune — and his own, to be 
Allied to such a lovely elf as she. 

"What though all other prizes pass me by!" 

Quoth he, the happy moth, "Enough for me, 
Mine is this bright-hued queen of brilliancy; 

Though I'm a moth, my wife's a butterfly!" 



Pictures and Fancies 



The bells ring midnight clearly on my ear, 
But not in unison. As, one by one, 
Their clamors die away till all are done, 

Still in my heart their dying tones I hear, 

While the great rush of Time seems now more 
near. 
And its swift course more solemnly to rim 
Under the darkness than beneath the sun 

And daylight's active, honest-hearted cheer. 

Now with myself may I commime apart 

From all the sleeping world: and thought, set 
free 
From noisy contact with the busy day. 
May probe the deep recesses of my heart. 
While brain and feeling undisturbedly 
Their mystic, interacting powers display. 



06 



Pictures and Fancies 



iFaarltmttmt 

Marvelous inspirations in her face, 

Pure lines of form, bright eyes, bewitching 

hair — 
And these and sweetness make her wondrous 
fair. 
Why should it trouble me ? Why should her grace 
Drive from my mind all other thought ? erase 
Other impressions from my brain ? plant 

there 
The sting of restlessness ? Why should I care ? 
H^r spirit haunts me from yon golden vase. 
From views of mountain, vale, and sunlit sea, 
From all the forms of things that meet my eye — 
Her mocking, haunting spirit in them all. 
Her fascination is a mystery 

That, when I seek from its sweet charm to fly. 
Compels me still her presence to recall. 



97 



Pictures and Fancies 



ilg Habtttttt^ 

Dear thoughts of thee, O lady mine! 
Come every day; but for the shrine 
Of the old saint, to love benign, 
New garlands, with the old, I twine. 
If I evoke not now the nine 
To sing of thee, 'tis that no line — 
No stanzas — can thy charms define. 
May thy glad life no joy resign; 
With every year new grace be thine. 
Pleasures and hopes; and all combine 
To bless with good thy way; no sign 
Of ill make dim the light divine 
That ever in thy face doth shine, 
Thy fairest charm, my Valentine! 



98 



CONCORD 



Pictures and FANaES 



A quiet village, yet its tranquil rest 

Full of rich memories ! They come to me 
With childhood 's pictures : and each memory 
A living thing in youth 's fresh colors drest. 
But not for me, alone, the interest 

That fills this rural town with history: 
What visions here may every dreamer see! 
What soul-inspiring memories invest 
This village with the spirit of the Past! 
They trod these streets of old, whose living 
words 
Are speaking still, to many a heart and brain. 
Their varied messages. Their phantoms cast 
Broad figures on the Present. With their 
swords, 
Deeds, pens, and words they labored for our gain. 

LOfC. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Pilgrim #rttUra 

Hither, believing freedom highest good, 

Came pilgrims, by sore persecution tried, 
Who would not worship what their souls 
denied. 

Nor palter truth. Amid the pathless wood 

They felled the trees that by the river stood, 

And built a blockhouse which doth still abide 
Through all the years and changes that betide 

More than two centuries ' rude hardihood. 
After the town was built in those old days 
When Peter Bulkley led his people here, 

He taught, with prayer and praise of God, that band 
Of exiles calm contentment in the ways 
Of Puritan simplicity so dear 

To those stem pilgrim-fathers of our land. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Elft MxmU Mm 

Upon the river bank a statue stands 

That tells how war began in former days; 

How promptly freemen freedom's arms upraise, 
Quitting the plow at honor's quick commands 
To free their country from marauding bands. 

This graceful statue is a people's praise; 

Meeting each later patriot's fond gaze, 
It arms anew, for liberty, his hands. 
The place is full of rich remembrances 

Of men and deeds of a heroic age; 
Out of that older day this Minute-man 
Leaps on his granite block. Our liberties 

Are safe in his strong hands. Our heritage 
Of freedom is his wise, far-seeing plan. 



103 



Pictures and Fancies 



And he who made the statue whose true art 
Adorns a lovely spot with history, 
Pictured in this effective effigy, 

A townsman here. Perhaps no little part 

Of quickening spirit in his artist heart 
Came to him in the stirring memory 
Of oft-told deeds of patriotic glory: 

For who can tell what impulses may start 
The fire of genius in the soul of man 1 

Or who can tell from whence divinely spring 

Conceptive thought's and form's awakenings! 
Out of some memory each thought began, 
Each form arose; for recollections bring 

Shapes of creative art's sublimest things. 



Pictures and Fancies 



How dull were he who, past the boundaries 
Of sight and touch, ne 'er dared project his 

thought; 
Nor unseen reasons for life's problems sought! 

Yet who, in darkness, ever clearly sees ? 

Or, from life 's puzzles causal forces frees ? 
This is a gift to one by nature fraught 
With insight — one intuitively taught 

The deepest truths beneath philosophies. 

Here, in the tranquil peace that nurtures mind. 
Thought's reasoner and master lived and died; 

But, ere he died, his wisdom greatly won 
New truths and ways; and, dying, left behind 
The key to larger truths, and ways more wide. 

By which all minds may follow Emerson. 



105 



Pictures and Fancies 



Peaceful and simple was the life he led, 

Away from din of trade or fashion's pride; 

A modest home his genius dignified. 
And when, from forth that village home he sped, 
'Twas not in pleasure 's flower-strewn paths to 
tread; 

But to spread out to all the country wide 

What, else, his simple life might tend to hide. 
Over the world his famous sayings fled; 

And men revered him, for his words were true, 
While his imagination, clear and bright, 

Like sunshine, shone his sober wisdom 
through. 
The visions, pictured in his mental sight. 

He told in earnest words till all men knew 
And blessed the Sage of Concord for his light. 



io6 



Pictures and Fancies 



A thinker more than student: mind intent 
To grasp the soul of things — no traveler 
Seeking for wisdom in strange lands afar; 

But, on discovery intently bent, 

His thoughts, in daring voyage, he often sent 

Through paths more dark than farthest Africa; 
Through space beyond remotest gleam of star, 

Till darkness, starlight, space and time were spent. 
All self-contained his thinkings and his world: 
Nature he saw, within his daily round, 

Stretching more vast than grasp of human mind. 
The while Imagination wide unfurled 
Her wings o'er slower way and common bound 

Of thought, the quicker, clearer way to find. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Elit ©Ijtnkipr nnh % Ban 

The Minute-man and Emerson ! — two things 
Here, on this lovely river bank, abide, 
Inscription and the statue. Thoughts are 
strangely tied 
By place and circumstance. The poet sings 
''The shot heard round the world:" on fame's great 
wings 
The Minute-man and poet, side by side, 
Bear forth brave Freedom 's challenge far and 
wide 
To homes of labor, palaces of kings. 
Twin leaders of a nation, Energy 
Allied with Wisdom — one makes not alone 
A people's strength: while manliness may fight 
Successful battle, winning liberty. 
Wisdom builds safely Freedom 's comer-stone, 
And keeps her pure and guiding torch alight. 



io8 



Pictures and Fancies 



The Wayside House, where Hawthorne lived, is 
shown 

To hosts of visitors who come to see 

Historic Concord — and this spot to me 
Is full of recollections all my own; 
And thoughts of long-ago still give their tone 

To picturings of later memory; 

For past this house my pathway used to be 
Mornings and evenings in the days long flown. 
The place is haunted ever by romance, 

Mingling the author with the mystery 
Of his weird tales. Above he used to pace 
Upon the hill-top, plotting circumstance 

In tragic scenes of awful witchery — 
But in those days we seldom saw his face. 



lOQ 



Pictures and Fancies 



Romance of Wonderland! What mystic light — 
"A light that never was on land or sea," 
Yet true beyond Earth 's dull reality — 

Shines on his pictures marvelously bright, 

Revealing to our rapt, admiring sight 
The splendor of an ideality 
That gilds, with artist sheen, the scenes that 
he 

Calls up before us by his magic might I 
Magician? Aye: at Hawthorne's potent call 
Spirits of fancies, fair and fierce, arise 

In mimic world where each must play his part: 
Through lovely scenes the awful mingles; all 
Combine to set before our spell-boimd eyes 

The beautiful creations of his art. 



Pictures and Fancies 



I can remember, sixty years ago, 
This time-wom manse; nor Hawthorne yet had 

told 
Its mosses; ancient then, it seemed as old 
As now. In the bright sunset's ruddy glow, 
Whose lovely lights o'er all the landscape show, 
Like fairy tints, their crimson and their gold, 
I half forget its years, its mosses, mould. 
All that would tell of time's impairing flow. 
Here lived the ministers. I still can see. 

Through childhood's recollections, one whose 
head 
And hands, in trembling age, were raised in prayer. 
Here Emerson once lived. In forty-three 
Hawthorne came here when he was newly wed — 
Old manse, how many mosses do you wear! 



Pictures and Fancies 



Thoreau's lone hermitage was by the shore 
Of Walden where, with little labor, he 
Set up his house, and lived most frugally. 

His luxury was leisure, and his store 

Was nature; o'er whose treasures he would pore. 
And find in strange, wild things society. 
Whose ways and wants and acts most lovingly 

He studied. What the wonder that this lore 
Gave him the thought that we should simplify 
Our lives, that, like the insects, birds, and flowers, 

We may enjoy the sunshine and the breeze. 
Green fields and trees; nor constantly deny 
Ourselves sweet indolence of idle hours 

And charms of contemplation and of ease! 



Pictures ann Fancies 



Uottwa M. Alrott 

Louisa Alcott tells, in many a tale, 

Of little people acting good or ill 

From the quick impulses of wayward will : 
This her life-work. Her stories never fail; 
For all romance, wit, humor, mirth, avail, 

And tears sometimes, their pleasant pages fill. 

The little folk, with merry laughter, still 
Keep green her memory; and years assail 
In vain her pleasing immortality. 

So hath she won, by tenderness and truth, 
And loving words and many winning ways. 

The children's hearts, that her bright tales will be 

Impressions deeply stamped in plastic youth. 
To guide in honor many older days. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Though life be tranquil here, yet, after this, 
Is there a life of more tranquillity 
Within each quiet grave's small boundary ? 

Can Death our hopes and passions then dismiss 

With the cold touch of his dissolving kiss ? 
Ah! who may gauge this deepest mystery, 
Momentous secret of the life to be ? — 

Eternal sleep or waking ? — pain or bliss ? 

But restful seems the last abiding place 

In Sleepy Hollow of the village dead. 

Here lieth Emerson; the Alcotts here; 

Hawthorne and Thoreau. Genius, virtue, grace. 
And reach of thought were in the lives they led; 

But larger thought now theirs, and sight more clear. 



114 



Pictures ann Fancies 



Along the river bank the clouds throw down 

Quick shadows on the fields. So slow the stream 
It doth not stir the water-lilies' gleam, 

White on the river's blue. Quaint shades of brown 

Lurk under the rude bridge. The drowsy town 

Behind me makes no sound to break my dream; 
But all rests sleepily; and it would seem 

That nature here can seldom wear a frown; 
That rural life is passing happily 
Within the pretty houses underneath 

The shading elms that make the landscape fair; 
That here abides profound tranquillity, 
While restfulness and somnolence bequeath 

The dreamer wondrous visions sweet and rare. 



FLORIDA 



Pictures and FANaES 



Fountain of Youth! The Spaniards sought it here, 
Thinking this unknown Florida might be 
Enchanted land of magic wizardry 

And marvels strange. What wonder that, with spear 

And sword, those errant knights who knew not fear 
Came, in the pride of their bold chivalry, 
To win that famous myth of poesy! 

In visions Ponce de Leon saw it clear, 

But quaffed his draught of immortality 
At last from death's dark fountain. Still, the same 
As when the visionary Spaniard came. 

Come voyagers now with fond imaginings 
Of health. Eternal youth can never be. 

But this sweet clime that golden dream still brings. 



Pictures and FANaES 



A charming breeze is wafted from the sea 
O'er richly-tinted waves; upon the blue 
White clouds are sailing; bright in scarlet hue 
Blooms the hibiscus; every plumed palm-tree 
Rustles its waving branches merrily; 

Of shore and lake enchanting is the view, 
Whose charms my fascinated spirit woo 
Until I share the sweet tranquillity 

Of this delightful Summerland, where frost 
Is barred, and whose soft kiss breathes fragrant 
bloom. 
When in the icy North cold Winter reigns, 
And all the flowers and verdant things are lost 
Beneath deep snows — the northern year's sad 
doom — 
On these bright shores fair Summer still remains. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Here is a clime by Nature always blest, 

Balmy as Eden's ancient Paradise; 

Here lusty pleasures buxomly entice, 
And the sweet South bids welcome to each guest. 
In Summer's garb and brilliant colors drest. 

She bids her trees and flowers with her rejoice. 

And breathe with her in sweetly singing voice. 
Filling all hearts with her own happy zest. 
And if a Norther comes, its power is tamed 

Ere it can reach Lake Worth. Here Mildness 
reigns 
With Beauty. Even the despotic sea 
Whose might is by resistless waves proclaimed. 

To thee. Palm Beach, a wooing sweetness deigns, 
And wears a soft and lovely smile for thee. 



OCTOBER SNOW ON 
OBERSALZBERG 



Pictures and Fancies 



Snow on my pines and stormy winds that freeze ! — 
So Winter, monarch of this mountain land, 
Thus early comes, with strong and icy hand. 
To spread his snowy banner. Melodies 
Of balmy Summer, borne on gentle breeze 

When its delightful softness round me fanned. 
And all my forest beauty, at command 
Of this rude summons, now, alas! must cease. 
Adieu, the year's sweet loveliness! Adieu, 
Green slopes, bright woods ! Each gay and 
winsome hue 
Must now be hidden in a snowy shroud, 
And all be whiteness like the veil of cloud 
So often drawn around my lonely head 
As if, indeed, the stricken world were dead. 



"5 



Pictures and Fancies 



mi^m WlnUt (HamtB 

From upland pastures, slopes of brightest green, 
Oft moistened as the drifting clouds flew by 
In summer, but where now great snow-fields lie, 

The cows are driven down: on each is seen, 

Entwined around her horns, a wreath; the queen 
More gaily decked. Through chill and stormy 

sky, 
Adown steep paths, most carefully they hie 

To winter homes below. Faint heard between 
Far mountain voices, sweet has been the sound 
Of all their tinkling bells. Each noisy brook 

That, through the summer, into deeps below 

Leaped amid rocks, and laughed at each rebound, 
Will soon be hushed; each lovely little nook 

Where wild flowers grew, be hidden under snow. 



xa6 



Pictures and Fancies 



3ilaitut9 tax ilag 

Henceforth for seven months no voice will come, 
But Winter's, from the skirt of pines that grow 
Along my foothills on the slopes below. 

Though I may hear, in icy dreams, the hum 

Of Summer life, yet Nature will be dumb, 
Her voices muffled under fields of snow; 
Silent my steeps except when wild winds blow, 

Alas, how unlike Summer! Still and numb, 
A giant sentry o 'er a frozen land. 

What dreary watch is mine ! But while I sleep 

And freeze on this cold watch. Time 's cleepless 
train 
Of icy months sweeps on, a joyless band. 
Until May comes to warm each snowy steep, 

And wake my world to Spring 's young life again . 



127 



TUNIS 



Pictures and Fancies 



#u99eattn«B of Arabian Ntglfta 

Turks, Arabs, Jews, Greeks, Nubians, Bedouins, 
Moors, 
Crowd busy streets; their costumes, quaint and 

say, 

Flash brilliant colors in the flaunting day, 
That whiter shines than, in our clime, it pours 
Through dimmer skies. Imagination soars. 

By the suggestion of these scenes, away 

Where tales of the Arabian Nights display. 
Before our recollection, magic stores 

Of marvels and of color: streets like these 

In winding maze, oft lined with gay bazars 
Where tawny merchants, cross-legged, sit for sales, 
Like spiders waiting victims. So one sees 

This Arab-Moorish land, wh ch seldom mars. 
In tint or shape. Queen Scherazade 's old tales. 



I3X 



Pictures and Fancies 



Land of romance! Like muffled Arab clad, 
Haroun Alraschid roamed in former days, 
Seeking adventures in the crooked ways 
And narrow streets, like these, of old Bagdad. 
Yon Moor, with tattered garb and visage sad, 
And fierce, wild eyes in which weird passion 

plays. 
Might tell a tale that would as much amaze; 
Yon Nubian playing to the listening lad, 

Yon blind man, standing where dim shadows fall, 
Naked and old, might each, with flashing eye 
And hero step, have dared adventures high: 

Each has his story. Every time-worn wall 
Suggests romance in quaintness of decay. 
And hints of wonders here, long passed away. 



132 



Pictures and Fancies 



Unless a Moslem, none may venture in 

The sacred mosques; and he must doff his 

shoes 
On entering : a symbol, if you choose, 

Of putting off uncleanliness of sin; 

O r to keep clean the holy mats. Within — 

I donned the garb — there are no seats or pews, 
But pillared aisles in long unvaried views. 

If plain and clean simplicity may win. 
The Moslem church is safe. About the door 
And porch the Arabs cluster, gossiping — 

An Arab gossips like a very woman — 
A cadi comes, whom all must bow before; 
A stately sheik in snow-white costuming; 

Or pious Turk intent upon his Koran. 



133 



THE BIRTH OF BEAUTY 



Pictures and Fancies 



QII|F iEarlg Mm 

The early man, when life was savagery 
In primal eons, like a wolf or bear 
Faced with brute eyes the world — sharp teeth 
to tear. 
Strong limbs to seize and carry off his prey — 
No pity in his heart called for delay 

. Of his fierce appetite. Nor foul, nor fair, 
Was aught to him. From forth his forest lair 
He came to forage for his food each day. 

And then, as now, the forest trees were high. 
And fair, beneath, the little wild flowers grew 

By him unheeded; brightly in the sky 
Shone down at night bright starlight from the blue; 
But Beauty was not bom: man was a beast; 
And his best instincts were to hunt and feast. 



137 



Pictures and Fancies 



Nature's ^pptni 

One day he rested by a babbling stream, 

And, casting down his weary body there j 
Espied a daisy blooming bright and fair 

On the green bank. Why did its modest gleam 

Now catch and hold his eye ? It did not seem 
A thing to eat; yet with bewildered stare 
He gazed; and, to his heart, an unknown care, 

Or pleasure, came. As, in amazing dream, 
A vision sometimes came to him in sleep, 

So now, upon him, dawned a something strange, 

And, in its strangeness, he forgot his chase 
And brutal appetite: still would he keep 
His eyes upon the flower; nor all the range 

Of the wild forest lured him from that place. 



138 



Pictures and Fancies 



Nor darkness broke the spell : for while he slept 
Bright daisies came in visions to his brain — 
Daisies and daisies, a confusing train 

Of images. He knew not why sleep kept 

The daisies in his eyes. Awaking, leapt 
Upon his feet in darkness, and in pain 
That what he saw in sleep would not remain; 

Then groped he for the daisies; and he wept 

Because he could not find them. Stung anew 
By tears, he wandered till the daylight grew 
Bright in the east, and then, a fawn he slew: 

The tender creature turned to his its eyes 

Appealingly for pity ; and surprise 

Again, of new emotion, thrilled him through. 



Pictures and Fancies 



SFrattfiformatinn 

So was the wondrous Spirit of Beauty bom, 

Glimmering dimly through the dusk of night, 
But growing always in a dawning light, 

Transforming beast to man. This primal dawn 

Of Beauty's inspirations marked the morn 
Of man's intelligence, translating quite 
Brute instincts into reason's loftier flight 

Of human thought; and the long night forlorn 
Was gone forever. Nature brightly smiled; 
And, in that smile, the lifted eyes of men 

Perceived new meaning, as high thoughts divine 
Responded: softness came upon the wild. 
And grace where only brutal life had been — 

So Beauty sets upon the world her sign. 



Z40 



Pictures and Fancies 



Irautg ta Ifarmong 

The light divine that shines in human faces — 
The clearest light of all philosophy, 
Illumining life's deepest mystery — 

Is born and fed by Beauty's charms and graces: 

Through all complexities we see the traces 
Of harmonies appear when forcibly 
Atoms are loudly clashed, or silently 

Are moved life's organisms of countless races. 
Beauty is harmony, the gracious speeches 
In which Dame Nature constantly delights, 

Angelic tones, the music of the spheres 
Whose starry melody from Heaven down-reaches, 
The fairy whispers of Earth's fairest sprites. 

Signs to our eyes, and voices to our ears. 



141 



Pictures and Fancies 



Signs, symbols, voices, music, harmony — 

Beauty is poetry of life, the grace 

That lights the soul, its triumph o'er the base; 
Romance and charm of every mystery, 
Glory and interest of history, 

Woven enchantingly round time and place. 

Forever lighting life's exciting chase, 
Divinest teaching. Universally 
The world is full of order and of law. 

So Beauty tells us constantly by signs 
That over all creation widely span. 

Moving our souls by gentleness or awe; 

Interpreters of purpose in designs 
Of God, of voices that He speaks to man. 



143 



RONDEAUX 



Pictures and Fancies 



Whither away, O Wind ? And dost thou bear 
Healing or harm ? Art cruel, or art kind ? 

Or, in thy haste, perchance thou dost not care — 
Whither away, O Wind ? 

Seek'st thou, wild spirit with the flying hair, 
Some hapless ship, upon the sea, to find 

And whelm in billows while thou shriek'st in air ? 
Whither away, O Wind ? 

Or would'st thou rather woo than fiercely dare ? 

Linger among the flowers, to sweets inclined. 
And gather up and breathe their odors rare ? 

Whither away, O Wind ? 



145 



Pictures and Fancies 



At mg^ 

Night in thy darkness dwelleth Fear 
And all the crew that shun the light, 

Shadows and ghosts and spectres drear, 
At night— 

Night, when the clock's slow hours we hear. 
If grief or pain sweet sleep afifright, 

No medicine can dry the tear 
At night — 

Night, when thy moon is shining clear, 
And lovers' hearts and hands unite, " 

The silence of thy hours is dear 
At night — 

Night, when thy myriad stars appear. 
The world, beneath thy dome, is bright; 

And Heaven seemeth then more near 
At night. 



146 



Pictures and Fancies 



Alone, I wander in bright, pleasant places, 
Hoping to catch, of Pleasure, her sweet tone; 

But Pleasure flies with all her joys and graces, 
Because I am alone. 

What is it, from my yearning heart, that chases 
The beautiful which I would make my own ? 

Beauty and Pleasure memory displaces, 
And I am not alone. 

Ah! gladly welcome I what thus erases 

The Present! When it makes my heart its throne 

I hear sweet voices, see my dear-loved faces. 
And am not then alone. 



147 



Pictures and Fancies 



mxHixn Elit&t WnllB 

What subtle spirit of mysterious might 
Dwelleth unseen within these living halls ? 

What high intelligence its torch doth light 
Within these walls ? 

My soul, what strong, though mystic, ties unite 
This home and thee ? What voice so strangely calls 

The world, by sound, smell, tasting, feeling, sight, 
Within these walls ? 

What art thou, O my soul ? A mortal wight. 
Demon, or angel ? Ah, the thought appalls, 

That, to thyself, thou art a mystery quite, 
Within these walls! 



148 



Pictures and Fancies 



Time, break thy glass, and stay thy flight! 

Why should the days so quickly pass ? 
Rest thee, and learn sweet rest 's delight ! — 

Time, break thy glass ! 

Time, drop thy cruel scythe of might. 
That kills so many hopes, alas ! 

O spare the world thy ancient spite ! — 
Time, break thy glass ! 

Time, clear thy brow of gloom and fright! 

Let smiles, within thy heart, amass 
The soul's glad sunshine, warm and white! - 

Time, break thy glass ! 



Pictures and Fancies 



Mart SItgljt 

The Parsee knelt, his hands outstretched to sky, 
And prayed his Magian god, with dazzled sight: 

"O blazing sun-god, give my hungry eye 
More light I" 

So Faith's devout disciples loudly cry, 
Howe'er devotion make religion bright : 

"Grant us the gift of gifts! We ask, Most High, 
More light!" 

Science, while seeking knowledge that would fly 
To larger truth, must seek, for such high flight, 

The gift so oft besought of deity, 
More light. 



Pictures and Fancies 



Farewell! — ^The word doth sadness send, 
Though fortune seem to promise well, 

And smiling Fates our hopes attend — 
Farewell ! 

Farewell ! — A word the heart to rend 
When parting seems, of love, the knell; 

Or far away from home we wend — 
Farewell ! 

Farewell! — ^A word we oft extend 
To lighter partings when no swell 

Of sorrow, to our thoughts, we lend — 
Farewell! 

Farewell ! — A word that still must end 
Kindest good-bye our lips can tell, 

However well beloved our friend — 
Farewell ! 



ISI 



TRANSLATIONS 

FROM THE GERMAN OF 

HANS SACHS 



Pictures and Fancies 



At Sommerhausen lived a priest 
Who did not hesitate the least 
To fool and trick his peasants well, 
As this our tale proceeds to tell. 

He had a habit when he preached, 
And to an end his sermon reached. 
To say: "My children, you I tell, 
Who follow all my teachings well. 
Will, without doubt, be saved, and be 
The heirs of Heaven's eternity." 
Then from his pulpit he descended 
When all his teachings so were ended. 
And took, with solemn face, his way 
To do each ofl&ce of the day. 

There was a peasant, Conrad Doubt, 

Who was a simple, clownish lout. 

So foolish in simplicity 

He thought ''doubt" meant himself, and he 

Was thus shut out, and so must be 

In danger of eternal fire; 

And knew not why he had such ire 

Poured on his head. This grieved him so 

That he resolved at length to go 

And ask the priest his faults to show. 

He said, "I pray you, father, tell 

Why under ban I ever dwell; 



iss 



Pictures and Fancies 



What have I done so very evil 

That you should give me to the devil 

On every Simday, when you say 

At sermon end, in solemn way, 

'All, without Doubt, are saved' ? Then all 

Look at me when my name you call. 

Thus do your sermons ever end. 

And thus, poor me, you always send 

Into the fire. Pray let me know 

For what ill deeds you treat me so." 

The priest at once resolved that he 
Would profit by simplicity 
So dull; then said, ''O Conrad, pay 
Attention to the words I say: 
Each peasant gives a peck of peas 
To me, for which I give to these 
My blessing; it is only you 
Who give no peas as others do, 
Who get no blessing." Conrad Doubt 
Thought that the secret now was out; 
So home he went, and brought the peas. 
Hoping the crafty priest to please. 

The priest, who laughed in secret, said: 
''There will be blessings on your head. 
And, Conrad, you are like the rest; 
Henceforth you always shall be blest." 
When Sunday came good Conrad Doubt 
Most gladly heard the sermon out — 
Heard the smug priest serenely tell: 
"Who follows all my teachings well 



1S6 



Pictures and Fancies 



Will thus be saved, and ever blest; 

And Conrad Doubt among the rest." 

But the priest's joke soon came to light, 

For he related it one night 

In public house amid much laughter; 

From which, of course, it came soon after 

To Conrad's ears, who felt its shame. 

And thought the priest was much to blame. 

His indignation grew and grew 

Until he felt that he must do 

Something to pay for all the shame 

The priest had put upon his name. 

At length this simple peasant hit 

Upon a plan that had some wit: 

He to confession boldly came. 

And told the priest, as if in shame, 

He had a sin he must relate. 

That he, within the fast-time, ate 

Some eggs. 

The priest, on mischief bent, 
Thought this a chance most excellent 
To do another trick, so cried, 
''O heretic! you have denied 
Your Lord, like Peter; and defied 
The Church. You are the devil's own. 
And now must reap what you have sown : 
Both flesli and blood the eggs contained; 
So you your precious soul have stained." 



IS7 



Pictures and Fancies 



"But they were boiled; no flesh had they, 
Nor blood," quoth Conrad; "wherefore say 
That I my soul have thrown away? " 

The priest replied : "In Rome alone 
Can you your grievous sin atone." 

"Alasl" cried Conrad, "penance set, 
Some penance that will save me yet!" 

Then said the priest: "Give instant heed! 
Your sin I may forgive, indeed, 
If, in my garden, you will sow 
Me peas in many a careful row." 

Conrad replied : "That will I do. 
With many grateful thanks to you: 
Tomorrow early I'll be there. 
And sow the peas with utmost care." 
Then, smiling cunningly, the priest 
His simulated sin released. 

Next morn was Conrad up to seize 

An early hour, to boil the peas 

In a great kettle; and the while 

He smiled to match the priest's sly smile. 

"Ho-ho!" unto himself he thought, 

"Boiled eggs ! boiled peas ! 'tis naught for naught." 

Then to the garden came he, where 

He found the priest, already there, 

Who mildly looked while Conrad's hand 

Sowed well the peas upon his land. 



158 



Pictures and Fancies 



Still cunning was the priestly smile 
As simple Conrad toiled the while. 
"Ahl" thought the priest, "Simplicity 
May prove a precious thing to me." 

But Conrad thought, "Dear priest, no smile 
Of your mild face can me beguile; 
Before two months will come and go, 
You may not then be smiling so." 

Then Easter came with joyful play. 

And soon it was the month of May. 

Elsewhere pea-vines were up and green. 

But not a pea-vine could be seen 

In the priest's garden. Days went on. 

And peas were blooming, but not one 

In the priest's plot. He was in doubt 

How this strange thing had come about; 

At last decided that wherein 

He fooled the peasant was the sin 

That made his garden fail to yield 

A single pea in all the field. 

It was for him a serious thought: 

He had not acted as he ought. 

And lo ! his garden thus became 

A silent token of his shame. 

So for the peasant now he sent. 
His mind on restitution bent: 
"What proper payment should I yield 
For sowing peas within my field?" 



X59 



Pictures and Fancies 



He asked the simple man, who smiled, 
And answered him in accents mild: 
"Nine crowns undoubtedly would do." 

The priest was startled, but he drew 
The money forth, and Conrad paid; 
Then to the peasant slowly said : 
"Because God lays a ban on me, 
I pay you this; for it may be 
I erred, to make your penance yield 
Your peas and work to sow my field. 
So may the good Lord once more please 
To let my garden yield me peas." 

The money pocketed, the man — 

This simple peasant — thus began: 

"Listen, my father, while I tell 

How all this barrenness befell : 

I learned your artifice, how you 

Mocked me with words that were not true; 

Then much I pondered in my mind 

How I could pay you up in kind. 

I think the good Lord in me wrought, 

And gave to me the simple thought 

To boil the peas that in your field 

I sowed for you; for they might yield. 

Though they were boiled, abundantly, 

If life in boiled eggs still could be; 

If flesh and blood were yet in these. 

Why not some life in well-boiled peas ? 

This simple reasoning is mine; 

I paid you, father, in your coin." 



i6o 



Pictures and Fancies 



The priest replied, "No piety 

Exists, I see, in roguery; 

Your trick was fair and just to me — 

Summa summarum : which, my lad. 

Means some are good, and some things bad." 

No further answer Conrad made; 

His peas and work had been repaid 

So well that he was quite content 

As homeward joyfully he went; 

While the priest's Latin — strange to say — 

Seemed to explain all faults away. 

MORAL 

Whoever seeks, with tricks, to fool 

More simple men should heed the rule, 

That roguery provokes the same. 

And men are only fools in name. 

A mocker wields a two-edged sword 

Which cuts both ways. Oft mockery 

Or laugh of biting raillery 

May be a source of misery, 

Or stir a fool's brain with its sting 

Till out of folly wit may spring. 

If one at nine-pins sometimes wins 

He should, in turn, set up the pins; 

Or, if another wins a game. 

Should not his luck misfortune name. 

It is but fair, in the same way 

As we have won, our debts to pay; 

Who then objects to pay the tax 

Should never play — so says Hans Sachs. 



i6i 



Pictures and Fancies 



Elit 3F0utttatn of f autly 

Sixty-two years! — ^Yes, I am old; 
The weight of years is manifold! 
While they are pressing hard on me, 
My thoughts go back in memory 
To the good days of early prime; 
Then comes regret for wasted time. 
As on my bed I, restless, lay, 
I wished for something to delay 
Old age; some ointment to restore 
Those gifts of youth I have no more. 

While in such meditation deep. 

The present fading into sleep, 

I dreamed that I was wide awake 

And heard the murmur fountains make: 

Before me was a basin bright. 

Its marble glittering in my sight, 

Wherein the water's pleasant flow 

Through twelve great pipes appeared to go. 

And in the basin marvels show; 

Whatever burdens age had brought. 

Though eighty years their harms had wrought, 

Who in that fountain bathed an hour 

Renewed his youth by its sweet power; 

Health, mind, and force came back to him. 

His buoyant heart, each lusty limb. 

Nations and races of the earth 
Assembled here for this new birth 



162 



Pictures and Fancies 



In multitudes. Knight, monk and priest, 

Tradesman and peasant, to this Feast 

Of Youth had come to be released 

From weight of years. No one so high, 

Or low, but he this cure would try. 

Crowded were paths and roads that led 

Out of all lands to Fountain Head 

Of Youth. On wagons, carts, sleds, came 

The wretched, crippled, old, blind, lame. 

Some came in wheelbarrows; some came there 

On backs of friends — all to repair 

Mischief of Time. Crooked and bald. 

Toothless and wrinkled, many crawled; 

Misshapen, blear-eyed, stumbled they. 

Coughing and wheezing on their way; 

There were such pantings, groans, and sighs 

As in a hospital arise. 

Twelve men, upon the fountain's rim. 

Helped on each one whose feeble limb 

Had not the strength to climb within. 

There to be strong and young again; 

For when an hour had passed away 

Within the midst of strengthening play 

Of magic waters, with light limb 

They gaily leaped the fountain's brim. 

Beautiful, rosy-tinted, fresh, 

With rounded shapes and healthy flesh. 

With cheerful minds, and free from fears. 

As if they had but twenty years. 

While thus, in health, they sprang away. 

New patients in their places lay. 



163 



Pictures and Fancies 



Then, in my dreaming sleep, thought I: 
"Thy two-and-sixty years now try; 
Why let this chance of youth pass by ? 
Thy deafened ears, thy wrinkled face, 
Why not these signs of age erase ? 
What hinders thee, in serious truth. 
From bathing in the Fount of Youth ? " 
Then I put off my clothes, it seemed — 
But this, indeed, I also dreamed — 
And climbed the marble basin's brim. 
Intent, when o'er its magic rim, 
To free myself from forty years, 
Their burden, tax, and crushing fears. 

When I was stepping in — alas! — 

Vision and sleep at once did pass. 

Then loud I laughed: "What would'st thou win? 

Like an old snake, would'st cast thy skin? 

No use: it sticks to thee like sin! 

Wear thy old hide; it fits thee well; 

Or, it fits not, do not tell. 

There grows no herb the plants among 

Hath any power to make thee young; 

There is no mineral spring that slacks 

The faults of age — Alas, Hans Sachs!" 



164 



Pictures and Fancies 



I 

A farmer had a wife both young and fair, 
Who had a gown of color fine, 

Of which exceeding proud was she. 
Slender was she of shape, of body rare, 
Like anvil-stock each curving line. 
He loved her dotingly. 
She said: "Dear husband, my love, know 
If cruel Death should come for thee. 
In my fine gown, I would thee sew." 
The farmer, doubtingly. 
Would test her love, what it would be. 
Into the wood he hied; 
To Heinz, his man, he cried: 
''With berries stain me well 
Like blood, to tell 
A great tree fell, 
My life to quell; 
Upon the wagon, carefully 
With green twigs cover me. 



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n 

"Carry me home, and say, a tree killed me; 
So may I know my wife's true will, 
If she her gown will give." 
His man obeyed his wish most faithfully: 
To the farm drove him, lying still 
Like one that did not live. 
The servant wept with eyes quite red; 

The wife said, "Wherefore weepest thou ?" 
He answered, "For my master dead. 
Struck dead by cruel bough." 
She said, "Thy words are foolish now; 
Art thou tree-stricken, too?" 
Then, while her husband she did view. 
The servant said: "Go, mistress, go. 
And bring the gown in which to sew 
His body; for thou well dost know 
That thou hast promised so." 
She said, "O, nol a pigskin rough. 
For him, indeed, is well enough." 



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III 

She had him roughly sewn in this coarse skin, 
But head and feet it did not cover, 
The pigskin was too short. 
She said, "My husband, thou look'st queer within 
This grave-cloth, but I have no other!" 
He wakened with a snort. 
And cried, *Tf I like pigskin look. 
Thou false and shameless thing! 
It is because thy word I took; , 
Is this the gown that thou would'st bring ? 

Thy faithless heart I now have read." 
Her craft still served her best: 
'T knew thou did'st but jest, 
And art not dead; 
But mocking me," she said; 
"No blood upon my gown be shed 
Until thy life be fled; 
Clean will I keep it, if you will — " 
And he believed her still. 



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And so she did with such success 
That his drink fines were somewhat less. 
At length the festival was o'er; 
The king a commoner once more; 
And every grand ofl&cial high, 
Cobbler or tailor, with a sigh. 
At two o'clock went home to bed, 
With staggering feet and reeling head. 
So went our priest, in safety led 
By his kind servant dame, and she 
Was very near as full as he. 

But scarce in bed did three hours pass 
When the bell rang for early mass. 
Dazed and bewildered still was he 
When he came to his sacristy; 
Dozing he at the altar stood, 
And read the mass as best he could. 
He felt strange visions vaguely go 
Through his dim brain in drowsy flow; 
But when in silent mass he bent, 
His priestly office from him went; 
All present duties were ignored; 
Soundly he slept, and snored and snored. 

Now rose, within his sleeping brain, 

The Three King's festival again; 

He dreamed its pleasures o'er and o'er; 

He drank great draughts of wine once more; 

He heard the noisy tumult ring; 

He heard the feasters cheer their king. 



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His snoring scared the sacristan, 

Who round the altar quickly ran 

And pulled his surplice with good will; 

The priest awoke, in dreamland still; 

He gained his feet; he thought his dame 

Had nudged him that the moment came 

To cheer the king; so loudly he 

Sent forth his shout of revelry : 

"Lo, the king drinks!" Thrice he cried out; 

And the church echoed back each shout. 

Then he awoke, and rubbed his eyes 
In mingled shame and dull surprise; 
Stood like a fifer whose false play 
Hath led the dancers all astray. 
Then he took heart and slowly spoke: 
"Good people, this is but a joke; 
It is not serious; so forget 
What you have heard; nor ever let 
The words, I late have spoken, be 
Treasured in any memory." 

The men and women laughed, and thought 
How it had chanced. The priest then sought 
His house and bed, that sleep again 
Might clear from drunkenness his brain. 
But when the bishop heard of this 
He took away the benefice. 
That so this careless priest might be 
Taught into good sobriety. 



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MORAL 

Out of this tale a priest may take 

Its moral: for religion's sake 

He should preserve his good repute 

Beyond all question or dispute. 

Who sets himself in place to be 

The people's teacher is not free 

To ever touch debauchery; 

So would he soil his saintly place, 

And all good teachings thus efface. 

If, in his life, he liveth well, 

It shows more good than he can tell; 

Such life a sermon is, more true 

Than any preaching he can do. 

What oft religion sadly lacks 

Is noble life — so saith Hans Sachs. 



172 



APR 4 1907 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

015 762 474 A ♦ 




